


Total Contained Time: Sixteen Years

by She5los



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: FFXV, Hurt/Comfort, It's a bit of an AU but only because they take a little more time before heading to Altissia, Kidfic, M/M, MT!Prompto, The plot's still going to happen they just left Insomnia a couple weeks earlier, and then this happens, child!prompto, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-07 21:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11632710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/She5los/pseuds/She5los
Summary: Hi hello this is my version of that kinkmeme prompt everyone's been jumping on.  Child!MT!Prompto for all.  Enjoy!





	1. I'm Not Really Formally Trained

It was late afternoon when the newly-named “Chocobros” (Iggy still hadn’t agreed to ever call them that) reached a real, honest-to-Bahamut Lucian military outpost.  Every one of them was excited for hot showers, a chance to resupply, warm beds, and not having to pay for their lodging.  When Iggy pulled up to the security booth, four military IDs were handed over to the guard.  They pulled slowly into a garage that was little more than rain protection and tumbled out of the Regalia.  They’d been on the road for hours, trying to reach the fort before nightfall, and each one of them was stiff.  The winding mountain roads had left Prompto a little carsick.

“Welcome to Fort Cauthess, Your Highness,” a familiar voice said from behind them.  Prompto turned to see Cor the Immortal approaching them and wished he wasn’t so tired and nauseous and grimy.

“Good to see you again, Leonis,” Gladio said, and stepped up to shake the Immortal’s hand.  “D’you have room for four?”

“If you don’t mind sharing a room,” Cor said.  “Here, let me help you take your things inside.”

They all felt better after showers and a meal.  Prompto, in particular, felt a lot less sick after staying on solid ground for an hour.  After dinner, Gladio went to sit in a corner with a book, Iggy went to their room to perform whatever arcane majjycks kept everyone’s socks in decent shape, and Noct challenged Prompto to a few rounds of King’s Knight, which he enjoyed until Cor the Immortal approached them.

“Your Highness,” Prompto’s childhood hero said with a casual salute.  “Could I borrow Argentum for a minute?”  Prompto almost dropped his console.  People asked for Noctis all the time, or for ‘someone who could do X,’ but never for Prompto, and now the man he idolized was asking for him by name.

“Yeah, we’re about to finish this round,” Noct told him as Prompto lost his last life.  He looked up and smiled.  “Have fun, Prom.”

Prompto followed Crownsguard Leonis through unfamiliar hallways.  “I heard you were something of an arms mechanic,” Cor Leonis, hero of Lucis, told him.  “We just got our hands on a time weapon.  Want to take a look?”

“Oh, I’m… not really formally trained,” Prompto mumbled, trying to keep his voice loud enough to hear.

“If we wait around for someone licensed by the Crown, we’ll be waiting until after the apocalypse,” the Marshal told him.  “C’mon, I think you’ll like it.”

Prompto really didn’t have any choice but to follow, then.  He figured, in a worst-case scenario, he could just open up the chassis, loosen and tighten a couple screws, and call it a lost cause.  No harm, no foul.

“We do have to be careful,” the Shogun said.  “We don’t know anything about this time magic, and it’s dangerous stuff.  If anything looks like magic storage, you’re gonna want to leave it alone.”

“I can do that,” Prompto told him.

When he had the gun in front of him, though, he had absolutely zero desire to leave well enough alone.  He opened the casing without much trouble, and from the clean and unworn insides, he could see how new it was.  The magic cartridge was actually very easy to identify, and he popped it out.  “There’s your time magic,” he said.  He held it in front of his face and squinted to read the sticker on the side of it.  It was in Gralean, like all the labels on foreign technology.  The barcode had stars on either side to denote its magical nature.  “Fifty-five percent concentration past-trending time magic.  Stabilized in one-hundred-percent-pure isopropyl alcohol.  Total contained time: sixteen years – the hell? Product of Haulhex Armory.”  He glanced down at the barcode: 0006, just like his wrist, so that checked out.  “Requires classification 4-4-7 technician to reload.  Oh, so it’s reloadable!”  He wedged a flat-head screwdriver into a likely opening point.

.-._.-._.-._

The kid clearly knew his stuff.  It took him longer to sort through the tool kit’s screwdrivers than to open up the time gun and pull out the magic cartridge.  The label had to be written in Gralean, but he translated it almost as quickly as if he was reading Lucian.  It was, more or less, a standard magic cartridge, except Cor had never heard of time magic before it was used against his men in the field.  Then Argentum did the one thing Cor had asked him not to do: upon reading that it could be reloaded, he opened the cartridge, itself.

Cor was standing well back.  Argentum took the full blast of the magic, and as Cor watched, he was surrounded by green light as he shrank down to about three and a half feet tall.  The confusion his soldiers had reported after having the gun used against them suddenly made a lot of sense.

The child standing where Shield Argentum had been had downy, yellow-blond hair and wore Prompto’s clothes, even if they were now several sizes too big for him.  He was tense, and something about him looked off.  By the time the child locked eyes with Cor, he’d placed it: he carried himself like someone with military training.  But he couldn’t be more than six.  He stared for a moment, then said a whole bunch of words in Gralean in a tone that was… not Prompto’s.  Not by any stretch of the imagination.  He sounded almost robotic.

But he didn’t seem to be hurt, and as far as Cor could tell, any danger the time gun posed had been eliminated in the explosion, so he stepped out of the room, closed and locked the door, and ran to find the prince and his cohort.


	2. Fully Functional and Unmodified

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the clusterfuck.

1987 blinked to awareness in a room with green walls, standing in front of a wooden table, holding a metal object he’d never seen before in his life.  This had happened before: suddenly realizing he wasn’t in the last place he remembered.  If he acted normal, people usually didn’t notice.  He didn’t recognize this room, but training facilities could have all different kinds of facades.

He didn’t know who he was with or where he was, so he looked around.  When he turned, wading through the strange clothes on his body, he saw an adult standing in the doorway.  By his all-black clothing and the red soles of his boots, he was Lucian military.

1987 had been captured, then.  He knew what to do when that happened.  He turned to face the man who was holding him and said, “MT soldier H-01987 of Unit 204.  You will return me to my unit fully functional and unmodified.”

The man stared at him for a good two seconds, then shut and bolted the door.

He was being kept as a prisoner, then.  Usually, his spurts of amnesia covered a few minutes, but he couldn’t remember being deployed.  Perhaps the base had been raided and he’d gotten concussed?

In any case, 1987 wanted to be fighting-ready the next time he saw any Lucians.  He pulled off the boots that went halfway up his thighs, then the pants and underwear that were several sizes too big.  That left him in a red dress, like a surgical gown, but closed in the back.  He also wore combat gloves that were far too large to serve their purpose and an assortment of bands around his arm and wrists, so he tossed those on the floor with the other discarded clothes.  He wrapped the black bandana from his arm around his left hand instead, since that was his better punching hand.  It wasn’t ideal, but it would provide a small amount of support and padding.

1987 stood at rest for the few minutes it took to hear footsteps approach again.  He fought the adrenaline making his pulse and breathing quicken; he had no use for his remaining human-like responses.  Someday, after enough treatments, he would be rid of them forever, and he could be reasonable.  In the meantime, he reminded himself that panicking was no use here and he needed to simply state his soldier and unit numbers and insist that he be returned in adequate condition.  Thinking about all the things these foreign soldiers might do to him that would leave him in inadequate condition wasn’t going to help him navigate this situation.

When the Lucian soldier returned, he came with three others.  They also wore the nonstandard clothing of officers.

“MT soldier H-01987 of Unit 204,” 1987 repeated.  “You will return me to my unit fully functional and unmodified.”

“Shiva,” the light-haired one said.  He continued in Lucian, to the first officer: “Well, I suppose you know what your time magic cartridge does now.”

Time magic?  Was that why 1987 had forgotten hours, or possibly days?  He kept his face blank, not wanting to let on that he also spoke Lucian.  If they thought he didn’t understand, they might let all kinds of secrets slip.

The tallest one walked up and knelt in front of him.  “We don’t want to hurt you,” he said.  He spoke Gralean, but his accent was almost impossible to parse.  “You’re safe here.  Do you understand me?”

“I am MT soldier H-01987,” 1987 repeated, again.  “You will return me to my unit fully functional and unmodified.”

The tall officer didn’t stand up, but he did turn to face the first one 1987 had seen.  “I don’t think you _want_ to know what he’s saying,” he said in Lucian.  “It’s fucked up.”

“Prom,” the last officer said.  The short one.  “Prompto.”  The use of 1987’s nursery name twisted something in his gut.  Above the age of three, responding to anything other than your number would lose you your next meal privileges.  1987 had done everything he could to forget his name, but just thinking the word was all that lulled him to sleep some nights, when his storage pod felt too small and it felt like all the air had been pulled out.  There was no way for a Lucian officer to know his name unless they’d read his files.  If that was the case, he was doomed.

A look through 1987’s file would show his extremely spotty record: talking back at least twice a week when he resisted going into storage, thoroughly subpar combat skills in almost all areas, and his willpower and obedience scores were nothing special.

The short officer wasn’t done talking.  He’d said something while 1987 had been distracted by the use of his name, but he was still speaking.  He was kneeling, just like the tall one.  “…would never do anything that would hurt you.  Or, um.  …Modify you, I guess?  We wouldn’t.  You’re safe.”

“I am an MT soldier of Unit 204,” 1987 responded.  “You will return me to my unit.”

“Noctis, stop that,” the light-haired officer snapped in Gralean.  “Don’t use his name.  He doesn’t like it.”  In Lucian, he added, “For all we know, it’s a name he gave himself after he came to Insomnia.”

1987’s head was spinning.  He was trapped in a strange place, held captive by at least four officers, and he had no idea what they wanted or how they had captured him.  They seemed to be speaking in codes, and they had his training records.  The adrenaline was finally catching up to him.

He turned around and vomited on the floor.

The short officer jumped to his feet; by the time 1987 had spit most of it out and turned back around, he was at the door with the light-haired officer and 1987’s original captor.  Only the tall, burly officer remained right where he was.  He calmly said, “You seem pretty upset.  Here, let’s get you cleaned up and get some food in your stomach.”  He still had an accent unlike any 1987 had ever heard.  He reached forward, as if he wanted 1987 to take his hand.

1987 had been told about this.  He was prepared.  After all, Magitek soldiers looked a lot like humans, and 1987’s eyes hadn’t turned color yet.  If an interrogator mistook you for a child, his instructor had said, and if you hadn’t already given them your designation, you were to give them a name – any human name – to refer to you by.  (No demerits or punishments would be administered if you had them call you by your nursery name.)  If you _had_ given your designation, and they were just oblivious, you were to set them aside in your mind as someone who was particularly manipulable.  1987 gave the large officer his hand and let his eyes tear up.  Tears were a stress response, acceptable during training so long as they didn’t interfere with your performance, though 1987 had to be very careful not to disguise the way his legs shook.  This officer thought he was pitiable, and 1987 was going to take full advantage.

“D’you think he’s sick?” the short officer – Noctis, like the Lucian prince – asked quietly in Lucian as they all walked through the halls.  “Is he running a fever?  I can grab some things from their infirmary if we need them.”

“Kids throw up for all kinds of reasons,” the tall officer told him.  “He’s probably just freaking out.  Woke up in a strange place, doesn’t know anyone, probably thinks we’re gonna torture him…  Anyone’d work themselves up.”

“If I may,” the light-haired officer interrupted, “He’s been trying to engage with us as a Magitek soldier, not as a child.  We should probably look up interrogation records to see what they respond to.  If he’s already assumed we’re hostile, it could be very upsetting to him when he realizes that isn’t the case.”

The light-haired officer was talking nonsense; Lucis would be stupid not to interrogate any MT, even one as inexperienced as 1987, and they shouldn’t have given him so much access to their base.  It clearly wasn’t designed as a prison facility, but as a strategic military outpost.  Just walking through the halls, 1987 got a pretty decent understanding of the base’s layout, and he memorized it for later.

They arrived in a small bathroom.  The two guards who weren’t holding 1987’s hand said they were going back to their room to ‘make sure it’s ready.’  There it was: 1987’s chance to flee.  The tall guard poured him a cup of water, knelt to his level, and finally spoke Gralean again as he said, “Here, you want to rinse your mouth out?  You should probably drink some water, too.”

That had to be a trick.  1987 took the cup and looked down at it for a moment as if he didn’t already know that anything could be in that cup along with the water.  It bought him time to think about his strategy.

He threw the water in the officer’s face to mess up his vision, then dropped the cup (not glass, so otherwise useless) and punched the man in the face before running.  He was careful over the slippery, wet linoleum, and less careful in the carpeted hall.  He was almost down the stairs when the officer caught up with him and grabbed him around the waist with two hands and picked him up.

1987 writhed, careful not to scream and attract attention even though the officer’s thumbs were pressing right into his most recent lash marks.  He tried to get out of the man’s grip as he was shifted into an easier-to-carry position, but the officer was too strong and clearly understood that giving 1987 access to his fingernails or a good place to bite would end with him dropping 1987 in pain.  1987 still dug his thumbnail into inside of the man’s elbow, but that only made him tighten his grip.

1987 was still unsuccessful when they got back upstairs and the other two officers who spoke Gralean were in the hallway.  “We’ve got a little escape artist on our hands,” 1987’s captor announced in Lucian.  “One of you, tell Cor so we can plan for tonight.  The other one, grab me a potion; kid’s looking a little green ever since I grabbed him.”

The light-haired guard went to root around in a pile of luggage.  The other left the room immediately, shutting the door behind him.

“I’m going to put you down now,” the burly officer said in Gralean.  He deposited 1987 on one of the four elevated platforms in the room, then swore in Lucian.  “Shit.  Iggy, he’s bleeding.”

“What did you _do?”_ Iggy (was that a real name?  Did Lucians name each other nonsense syllables?) asked as he brought a glowing blue bottle over.

“Nothing.  I picked him up.  He was trying to run.”  He stood aside as the fair-haired officer approached, unscrewing the bottle’s lid.  “That was _after_ he gave me this black eye, so how would I know he was hurt?”

The fair-haired officer splashed a little of the blue liquid in his colleaugue’s face and the damage 1987 had done was reversed.  He turned to 1987 and asked, “Have you had a magical healing before?  It may hurt a little, but then your injuries will be healed.”  1987 nodded (he’d never encountered magic of any kind, but that sounded good) and the officer grabbed his arm and poured the rest of the liquid on it.  The magic took effect almost immediately.  His whip marks, which had reopened, zipped themselves shut.  All his scrapes and bruises burned until they stopped feeling like anything at all.  1987 hadn’t known there was anything in the world that could make the ache of living and training fade like that.  And the surface he was sitting on was so soft.  It was hard to remember these Lucian officers were his enemies, sneakily trying to win his trust, when everything was so soft all of a sudden.

Noctis let himself into the room.  “Hey, guys, the Marshal’s in the loop and I grabbed some musubi and apple slices,” he said in Gralean.  He smiled at 1987 and held a plate out to him.  “Here.  It’s good.  Are you hungry?”

It wasn’t a nutrition bar.  1987 wasn’t sure why he thought Lucians would have civilized things like nutrition bars when they couldn’t even give their officers separate quarters.  He looked at the ‘musubi,’ then up at Noctis.

“Not in a big protein mood, huh?” Noctis asked.  “I’ve got apples.”  Now he was offering a plastic bag with light yellow, crescent-shaped objects in it.  His smile wilted as 1987 remained indifferent to them.  A sour scent rose from the bag, like the daily vitamin supplement.  “What’s wrong?  Are you not hungry?  Do you not like apples?”

“I will eat with my unit,” H-01987 told him.  “You are not authorized to administer nutrition to me.”

His stomach felt like a gaping hole, and he really could have used a vitamin supplement and a nutrition bar, but he didn’t know what the punishment would be if he let himself eat unauthorized food.  What if it was drugged?  What if it was poisoned?

…What if it made him feel better?

“Noctis, a word?” Iggy asked in Gralean.  He guided his colleague out of the room, leaving 1987 with the officer whose name he didn’t know.  Noctis handed the food over to 1987’s guard.

“No funny business this time, right?” the guard asked.  “No escape attempts?  …Is there anything I can do that would authorize this food?  Eat some of it, maybe?”  He looked distressed.  1987 reminded himself that this guard considered him a human child, or at least more like a human than a Magitek soldier.  Now that they were alone, he could really play up the pitiable qualities that this officer would expect a child to have.  Maybe he could even pass his escape attempt off as something he did out of fear instead of something he’d waited for.

1987 looked down.  “It’s alright,” he said.  “I’m not hungry.”  He was _so hungry._   He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, since he’d missed lunch for his inadequate performance during sparring.  This officer had seen his file, so he would be able to spot the lie.

“I always get hungry after using healing magic,” he said, which was… perplexing.  The healing hadn’t made 1987 any hungrier than going all day without food.  “And I’m not sure when we’ll be able to return you to your unit, so I think we need a way to authorize the food we give you.”

“I can handle it,” 1987 said.  The tears forming in his eyes weren’t even fake.

“You shouldn’t have to, though.  How old are you?”

“Six years from hatching in October.”

The guard reacted to that.  He looked like he was trying very hard not to react, and 1987 couldn’t figure out what was so surprising about saying he was almost six.

“I have a little sister,” the officer told him.  “She’s eight years younger than me.  When she was five and a half, we always made sure she had snacks whenever she needed them.  It’s good when you’re growing.”

1987 had a decision to make.  He could remind his guard that he was not a human child, but a recently-commissioned Magitek soldier, which could make the guard wary of him.  Or he could pretend to be human and beg for food, risking harsh discipline when his unit recovered him.

His stomach made the decision for him.  It growled before he could figure out what to say.

“Here.  If I eat one of these, will you accept that it’s safe?” the Lucian asked, holding out the crescent-shaped objects.  “It’s a fruit.  They’re common all over the world; I’ve eaten them my entire life.”  He picked one of the pieces out of the bag and took a bite from it.  It crunched.  1987 had heard that sound coming from the food his facility’s guards sometimes ate, so it was probably subpar human food.  1987 knew that human food would sustain him until he could return to his healthier diet of vitamin slurry and nutrient bars.  And his guard seemed convinced that a human child would be hungry by now.  (And 1987 was so hungry, only restrained by knowing that asking for more never did anything.)  His captor held out an ‘apple slice’ and he took it and bit off a piece.

The texture was Wrong.  It had the tangy taste of vitamin slurry, but much sweeter and not bitter.  After it crunched, it was like it melted down into a fibrous pulp, nothing like the elastic chewiness of a nutrient bar.  It wasn’t bad, but it was very confusing, and he didn’t like it on top of all the other confusing things he’d had to navigate since realizing he had been captured.

The other two guards came back inside.  “Oh, thank the Six, you got him to eat,” said Noctis, and 1987 was more certain than ever that this was some sort of trap.  But he was trying to act like an oblivious human child, so he looked down and bit off another piece of apple slice. 

.-._.-._.-._

“Gladio, if we could talk outside for a moment…?” Iggy asked almost as soon as he was done talking to Noct.  He stood expectantly by the door, arms folded over his chest.

“Yeah, sure,” Gladio told him, but turned to Noctis before he left to say, “If you want him to eat, you have to eat the food first.  Show him it’s safe and all that.”  It took so much focus to keep talking in Gralean; he’d always just read it, and mostly classics and romance novels, so normal, everyday speech was tricky.  He resisted the urge to give Prompto a hug or squeeze his shoulders or ruffle his hair, and just stood up and walked over to Iggy.  Prompto seemed to be more subdued now, or maybe he just didn’t think he could escape with two people in front of the door.

They left and shut the door, and after a quick kiss (Gods, they needed more time alone; they were kissing in hallways now) Iggy said, “We need to find out if he speaks Lucian.”

“What?  He doesn’t.  Five-year-olds aren’t crafty, Iggy; he doesn’t know it.”

Iggy frowned.  “I thought so, too, until he didn’t react to the word ‘torture.’  They would have taught him at least a few Lucian words, right?  Ones that he could recognize to prepare himself for anything bad.  I think he didn’t react because you were scoffing at the very concept of violence.  So, again: we need to know if he’s understood everything we’ve said so far.”

“And I take it you have a plan for that?”

Iggy smiled tightly.  “A rather unpleasant one, of which I doubt you’ll approve.  It may stop him from trusting me for some time.”

There was a headache building behind Gladio’s eyes that he didn’t expect to go away any time soon.  “Spit it out,” he ordered.

“There are things we need to know from him,” Iggy pointed out.  “How often he eats, when he normally sleeps, all the things we can do to make his life less abnormal until this magic wears off.”  It wasn’t until he said that, somehow, that Gladio realized it might never wear off, and they’d have a brainwashed kiddo on their hands and have to find him a safe place to stay that could handle the level of abuse he’d clearly endured.  It seemed fucking cruel for Prompto to have to adjust to civilian life twice in one lifetime.  But Iggy wasn’t done talking.  “So I stage a light interrogation,” he continued.  “Very light – a locked room and a few well-timed frowns should be all the intimidation we need – and I ask him questions about his schedule at whatever base he lived at.  I can get you the name of the base, probably, since he’s so intent on being returned there; I know you must be itching to go there and destroy it – and then, after we have everything we need, I ask you or Noctis to bring me a torture implement and see if he reacts.”

Gladio actually stepped backward in disgust.  “Iggy.  You can’t do that.”  He knew it was Iggy’s job to do the shitty, manipulative things courtiers and politicians sometimes had to do, but manipulating a _child_ like that?

“But do we have another option?” Iggy asked.  “He won’t just tell us he speaks Lucian, and I don’t think he knows about any of the comforts we enjoy here.  I’ve certainly never read about apples recovered from shipments of Magitek supplies; for all we know, they get their micronutrients from that disgusting orange juice they drink.”  He shook his head.  “We can’t offer to withhold a favorite toy and I don’t think threatening not to feed him would be anything he hasn’t heard before.  It has to be a threat of physical harm, and I’m the most guarded with my emotions, so it has to be me.  Anyway, you know I’m terrible with children.  I only barely survived caring for Noctis all that time, and I was a child, myself.  If he spends some time trusting me less, it would be better than if it were you or Noctis.”

The sound of footsteps interrupted anything Gladio might have said in response.  It was Cor, carrying a small armful of what looked like children’s clothes.  “Thank Shiva for the Arsenal,” he said as he held out the bundle in his hand.  “I called Abnormal Supplies and explained we had an officer who’d taken a hit of time magic and turned into a child.  Then I had to explain why we hadn’t reported the time magic incident yet.  Then he sent over some clothes for Prompto.”

“He prefers to be called by his numeric designation,” Iggy told Cor.  He looked profoundly tired.  “H-0-1-9-something.  His face closed up completely when Noctis called him by name.  Gods, I can’t handle this; he should have been able to tell us in his own time.”

“We should all turn in early,” Gladio said.  He’d seen Iggy get overwhelmed more than enough times to know it was time to shut it all down.  “Cor, thank you so much for the clothes.”  He reached out and Cor handed them over readily.  “We’ll try not to cause any disturbances, but I can’t promise anything.”

Leonis nodded.  “Anything you need, just ask.  Argentum’s a good kid.”  He put a steady hand on Gladio’s shoulder for a moment, then turned and walked back down the hall.

Gladio opened the door and used his free hand to guide Iggy inside.  “Get some sleep, Specs.  It’s been a rough day,” he said, and turned Iggy around for just a moment to kiss him.  _Did_ Prompto understand them?  He didn’t think he’d said anything classified or bad in Lucian, but he hadn’t been thinking about it.

Iggy smiled briefly, then went and dug some pajamas out of his duffel and changed facing away from everyone.

“We have clothes,” Gladio told Noct and Prompto, forcing a smile, and put them down on the bed next to Noctis.  “Real, child-size clothes.”  He looked over at Prompto.  It still took so much effort not to just stare at the barcode on his wrist.  “We have the kind of clothes you wear when you sleep,” he said, unsure of whether the word he could think of for ‘pajamas’ was more of an adult word.  “Do you sleep with socks on?”

“Yes.”  Prompto looked uncertain.  He looked like he was ready to describe his sleep habits, but he didn’t continue.

Gladio set aside some socks along with the PJ’s.  Come to think of it, he knew nothing about how MT’s slept, and Prompto kept saying horrifying things ( _hatched,_ he _hatched,_ who the _fuck_ found a way to grow humans in eggs and didn’t immediately backtrack on everything they’d ever done?) without realizing there was anything even slightly unusual ( _fully functional and unmodified,_ like a computer, like any part of him was replaceable).

Iggy was already overwhelmed.  Noctis didn’t know anything about either children or caring for people with trauma.  Gladio felt like he was watching a horror show unfold in front of him, and he never knew what horrifying thing would come up next that he expected to be mundane.  He’d spent plenty of time staying calm to keep a kid from freaking out, but only for things like cutting his arm during training; he’d never had to resist telling a child that _they shouldn’t have hatched out of an egg._   It sounded like the sort of thing he would have told Iris when they were kids, to freak her out.

His mind went to the clutches of eggs he’d seen in daemon nests.  Magiteks did have daemonic coloring, but Prompto, even the older Prompto who’d escaped all that, had bright blue eyes and a rosy complexion.  He was always getting sunburned, but they were normal, human sunburns that turned his skin red, not the smoking, ashy burns daemons got in sunlight.

“What do you usually do before bed?” Noctis asked.  Gladio looked up.  Prompto had almost finished the apple slices.  Still hadn’t touched the mystery meat sushi.

Prompto looked confused.  “I’ve never heard of ‘bed,’” he said.  …The fuck?

“These,” Noct said, and patted the mattress next to him.  “You know.  For sleeping.”

“Sleep is only acceptable in storage pods.”

Noct’s smile froze on his face.  He and Gladio shared a Look.  _Storage pods._

“I’m sorry,” Noctis said, sounding almost unfazed.  The guy really was an exceptional diplomat; Gladio was ready to punch a wall.  “We don’t have any storage pods.  I guess sleeping on mattresses is a Lucian custom.  Do you think you could sleep in a bed until we can find something that works better for you?”

.-._.-._.-._

He shouldn’t have, he knew he shouldn’t, but the moment his captor said “we don’t have any storage pods,” 1987’s first thought was, _This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me._

He wasn’t sure how to sleep in a ‘bed,’ or whether the sleep he got in it would be adequate, but Iggy had already lain down in his, turned toward the wall, and he was covered in a thick cloth panel, but not enclosed in any other way, and no one had tried to cover him or move him to a more efficient storage space.  If that was how you slept in a bed, Prompto couldn’t wait.  It was like his fantasies of lying down on the blue mats in the gym and sleeping there, but even cushier.

The Lucian officer had asked what he did before ‘bed,’ which seemed to mean before he went to sleep.  1987 didn’t tell him, now that he’d figured out what bed was, that his unit cleaned themselves before going into storage.  It would only spare him one day of cleaning, he knew – unless not bathing was also a Lucian custom – but he was probably going to be tortured soon, and nightly cleaning wasn’t _required_ the way obstacle courses or sparring or receiving punishment after transgressions was required; it was just hygienic.  One day’s lapse would do nothing, and he wouldn’t have to be cold.

So 1987 changed into the soft clothes the tall guard gave him.  There was a shirt with strange clasps in the front, which he didn’t need to undo to put the shirt on, and underwear and pants and socks.  H-01987 was grateful that at least Lucian clothes worked more or less the same way Niflheimian ones did.  The shirt was very loose and the pants were only tight enough because they had a string around the waist that he could tie, but they fit better than the gown he’d been wearing. 

1987 had meant to stay up.  He had meant to sneak out when he was unguarded, use the nighttime to cover his movement – he had no fear of daemons, since he was almost their kind – but when he got into bed and the tall guard – Gladdys? – tightened the cloth around him – snug, like a harness, not close like a storage pod – exhaustion filled his bones and he was asleep in moments.


	3. Can't You Just Stay Put for One Morning?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompto pulls another escape attempt. It goes even worse than the first one. Also, if you're planning on being turned into a small child any time soon, maybe don't wear contacts.

H-01987 didn’t realize at first that he was awake.  For one thing, everything around him was soft.  There was softness under his head and softness under his shoulder and softness wrapping around him.  It felt like the drugged sleep you received if you got an injury but acted honorably, something 1987 had only experienced a couple of times.

For another thing, there were no pod walls around him.  1987 couldn’t be awake because he wasn’t in storage, and while he sometimes forgot pieces of his day, he almost always remembered waking up and going to sleep.

The thing that told him he was awake was the burning feeling of his eyes.  He didn’t know why they hurt, but they were scratchy and uncomfortable.  No matter how many times he blinked, they weren’t wet.

He sat up.

The officer across from him – Igg?  Iggy – lowered the book he was reading to look at 1987.  “Is something wrong?” he whispered, still hoarse from sleep.  He frowned at 1987 and swore quietly in Lucian, then carefully, quietly got out of bed and said, “Come with me.  Let’s be quiet so we don’t wake the others, hm?”

1987 knew what this was.  It hadn’t happened to him before, and he wasn’t completely clear on exactly what guards did when they took badly-behaved Magiteks aside, but he knew the look of a person it had happened to.  It was different from punishment, which was done publicly.  It wasn’t something that guards ever stopped other guards from doing, so waking the others up would only anger them without doing anything about whatever was going to happen to him.

Iggy led him to the bathroom and shut the door.  1987 stood at rest while Iggy rooted around in cupboards and muttered to himself.  At last, he found a small, oddly shaped object and two bottles of liquid that he placed on the counter.  He knelt in front of 1987.  Everyone here seemed to do that.  1987 took a step back.  “I’m not sure how to explain this to you,” he said.  1987 thought that was really too bad, because he didn’t know how this was going to work.  His eyes still burned, but it was partially out of fear.  “Except to say that, when you arrived here, you came in somebody else’s clothes and you seem also to have gotten his contact lenses.  Do you know what those are?”

1987 shook his head.  At least Iggy was telling him what was going to happen, even if he seemed to be speaking in code again.

Iggy reached up and pulled off his eyeshield.  He tried to hand it to 1987, but took it back when 1987 didn’t accept it.  “These are my glasses,” he said.  “They have special lenses that are like magnifying glasses – do you know what those are?”  1987 shook his head.  “Well, they make things seem nearer than they are.  Without them, a lot of things look blurry to me.”  He put them back on.  “The person whose clothes you appeared in yesterday also had trouble with focusing his eyes, but instead of putting the lenses in front of his eyes like me, he got very small, squishy lenses that he put right onto his eyes.  When you leave them in too long, air can’t pass through them and your eyes can feel scratchy.  Is that how your eyes feel?”  1987 nodded.  Iggy frowned.  “Then I have to ask you to do something that may be very difficult.  I promise you it won’t hurt you, though it will be hard.  To remove the lenses that are making your eyes feel bad, you must pull your eyelid open with one hand and touch the very center of your eye with the other, and slide the lens down, away from your pupil.  Pinch it between your fingers to detach it from your eye, and then give it to me and I’ll store it.  Your eyes won’t feel better immediately, but in a few minutes, they should.  If you have difficulty, I can do it, but I’d rather not if you don’t need me to.”

That was probably not the thing 1987 was anticipating.  It didn’t seem like it could be done without a lot of preparation.  It didn’t seem like it would lead people to scrub so hard at their skin during cleaning time.

It took several tries, and 1987’s eyes teared up a lot (it felt bad, like his defenses were down, he couldn’t _see,_ everything was extra blurry), but he did it.  Iggy put the lenses away in a small case with a mixture of the two liquids in it.  He was still standing up when he asked, “While we’re here, are you thirsty?”

1987 _was_ thirsty, as he often was in the morning, but he wasn’t about to just accept anything a Lucian official put in his hands, so he shook his head.

“Let’s go back to the room, then,” Iggy said, and opened the door.

1987 was so relieved, he started to cry when they were still in the hallway.  Crying for real, not crying from the strange objects in his eyes.

“Are you alright?” Iggy asked before he opened the door to the storage room.  He knelt down, which all the Lucian officers did all the time, as if to make 1987 extra aware of how small and weak he was.  “Do you need a moment?  Perhaps you need some more rest?”

1987 said, “Thank you,” tried to whisper it but couldn’t make his voice soft enough, and that bad part of him that held onto childish things told him that he was Prompto in that moment.

Iggy frowned.  “For helping you with the contact lenses?  I really should have remembered it last night.”

“Not for that.”  1987 – _Prompto_ – didn’t know the name of what Iggy hadn’t done.  He didn’t know how to describe it, and he hadn’t seen it.  He only knew it was very, very bad.

He thought that Iggy knew what it was, because a moment later, he _jumped_ away from Prompto.  He did keep his voice down to a whisper as he said, “I would never – it hadn’t crossed my mind – I didn’t know you were—”  He opened the door of the storage room.  He whispered, “We’re in public now, right?  Nothing I do to you now is in private.  I don’t—I never meant to make you believe…”  He put a hand over his mouth.

1987 walked into the room, shoulders hunched.  He had upset his guard, which you were never supposed to do.  There was certain to be some kind of punishment for that, even if these officers did seem to be strangely lenient.  1987’s luck couldn’t last forever.  He climbed up onto bed and buried himself in the covers again.  Iggy had suggested more sleep, so that should be an acceptable course of action.

1987 didn’t feel tired, not after that, but Iggy lay down in bed himself and returned to his book, glancing at 1987 infrequently, and 1987 didn’t like the feel of eyes on him, so he turned around to face the wall.  His eyes _did_ feel better, and the world was back in the softer focus he was used to, and before he knew it, he awoke to the sound of movement.  He sat straight up in bed.  He wasn’t going to be fooled into thinking he was asleep this time.

The room had changed.  There was a hole in the wall, with lightweight fabric over it, and light came in through it.  With just regular lights, the room had been orangey; with the new light, it was more of a plain whitish color.  1987 hadn’t known to identify the cloth hanging as a place that was open to the outside, and he had questions about it that he didn’t know how to ask.  He knew that humans didn’t burn the way Magiteks did in sunlight, but did they actively seek sunlight, as well?  Did they incorporate it into their buildings so thoroughly that their evening lighting was almost inadequate?

“Morning,” said the tall guard, drawing 1987’s attention.  The man had a name, it started with a G, but 1987 couldn’t remember it.  He looked over at Noctis.  “Don’t worry about waking that one up.  He could sleep through a train crash.”  He stood up and left the room.

More than anything, that made no sense.  Of all of them, G was the most aware that 1987 would readily become hostile when left alone with one of them.  He had stayed the night, eaten their ‘apple slices,’ but that didn’t mean he no longer wanted to escape.  Today, they were certain to torture him; they probably just hadn’t had time yesterday.

1987 got an idea.  These people were so lenient…  He got up and walked out the door, trying to look like he was following the tall guard.  In the hallway, the guard had already shut the door of the bathroom.  There was no one else in the hallway, so 1987 tried to keep his footsteps quiet until he was all the way down the hall, then he pattered down the stairs (in only socks; why hadn’t they given him shoes?) and ran until he found the front door.

It was all laughably easy.  He walked casually in the yard, not wanting anyone to think anything was amiss.  There were no other soldiers his age here, but if he was very lucky, no one would notice him.

1987 heard footsteps behind him, suddenly.  Strong boots, like he should have had.  He started running, but the man chasing him was faster (adults always were) and picked him up like G had.

“Fuck, kid, can’t you just stay put for one morning?”  It was the officer 1987 had seen, who only spoke Lucian.  1987 had to remember not to respond to the words.  He writhed in the man’s grip.  “Astrals.  Yeah, sure, just keep on like that, I guess.”  He was very good at restraining holds; in his grip, 1987 could barely do anything, and he kept him that way until he was back upstairs.

“Hey, guys, guess who I found trying to walk out of the fort,” he said to announce himself as he carried 1987 back into his captors’ storage room.

“Oh, dear.  I thought he was just following Gladio,” Iggy said.  Gladio!  That was it!

“Do coordinate these things,” the man holding him said.  “You and Gladio are literally bodyguards; you know how to do a handoff.”  He put 1987 down on the ground, upright so he could stand.  “I don’t want to know what happens if we lose him, but you know the kind of animals that’re out there during the day and I wouldn’t exactly bet on daemons leaving him alone.”

1987 had seen an older Magitek soldier talk to a daemon.  He had seen that soldier pass by unharmed.  1987 had nothing to fear from daemons.  But, if he tried to leave again, someone would catch him, so he padded over to bed, ignoring the squidgy, cold, wet feeling of his socks, and braced a foot against the wooden part to boost himself up.

“I really can’t thank you enough, Captain Leonis,” Iggy said, and the blood froze in 1987’s veins.

Cor Leonis, Cor the Immortal, was a Lucian villain, larger-than-life, a man who had killed hundreds of Magitek soldiers and was infamous for it.  In Lucis, they held celebrations for him, for being such a good murderer.  1987 had been in his hands just a moment ago, and not known he was in the greatest danger of his life.

1987 didn’t know he was screaming until he was back across the room, throwing himself at Cor Leonis.  He had no idea what he was doing, didn’t even have a weapon, but the man in front of him was everything 1987 had ever been taught to kill.

“Fuck!  What the shit?”  The Immortal bent down and grabbed 1987 by the shoulders, and 1987 pounded at his arms, clawed and bit.  Iggy dove forward to restrain his arms and he kicked for all he was worth.  He almost escaped that hold, but Iggy tightened his grip.

 _“I hope you die suffering,”_ 1987 screamed in Lucian.  If that was the only language the man spoke, it was the one 1987 needed to speak.  _“I hope they cut off pieces of you until you disappear!”_   He tried to wrench himself out of Iggy’s grasp again and only got a searing pain in his shoulder.  He had to stop struggling; it was a bad kind of pain, the kind you got sent to the medical wing for.

“Prompto,” Iggy gasped, and _that wasn’t his designation he didn’t have any right to call him that but he loved the name so badly._   “He’s dislocated his shoulder,” Iggy said.  “I need you to hold him still while I realign it.”

Cor the Immortal nodded and laid hands on 1987.  1987 wanted to scream, but he’d always been taught to stay as quiet as possible when he was in pain so the medics could work better.

Wrenching his shoulder back into place was about as painful as wrenching it out had been.  1987’s eyes were already tearing up so badly he could hardly see.

“I’ll leave,” Cor Leonis’ voice said, though the man was just a brown-and-black blur.  “He needs to rest.”  The door opened and shut.  Iggy lifted 1987 in a way that barely restrained him at all, but with the Immortal gone (that was his only chance, why did he have to waste it like that, why did he have to follow his instinct instead of thinking it through?) and his shoulder hurting, 1987 didn’t have much fight left in him, anyway.

He was placed in the bed, and covered over again.   Iggy paused as he was walking away, and said, “I apologize; that can’t have been the best way to wake up.”  He said it in Lucian.  (They all knew 1987 spoke Lucian now.  Stupid!)

Noctis’ voice was creaky, like Iggy’s had been the first time 1987 woke up.  “Not exactly.  What happened?”

“Our little escape artist made a run for it, and Captain Leonis brought him back.  I don’t think he likes him very much.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.  That, um… That answers your question about him speaking Lucian, though.”

“Very conclusively, yes.”

The door opened and shut and a large, dark figure entered who had to be Gladio.  “So, I heard a bunch of screaming,” he said as if it meant nothing.  “Everything alright in here?”

“He speaks Lucian,” Iggy said.

“And hates Cor,” Noctis added.

“And dislocated his shoulder.  You really have miserably bad timing, but if you can take over, I’m already spent.  I’m going to get some breakfast, alone.  Look up an appropriate ibuprofen dosage for him.”  He picked up the book he’d left on the table next to his bed.  With his eyes full of tears, 1987 only knew it was a book because he’d seen it earlier.

Noctis did something that 1987 couldn’t see, left the room and came back, and said, “Hey, I have some pain killers, but I only have pills.  Do you know how to take pills?”

1987 nodded.  He had been sick before.

“Great.  Can you sit up for me?  I can help you, if you need it.”  He dug a hand under 1987’s back.  1987 winced as his shoulder was jostled, but he tried to stay quiet.  He was still having trouble seeing, but a pill was pressed into his hand – a small one, which he easily swallowed – and then a cup of water.  He should have been more suspicious, he should have questioned whether the Lucian was doing what he said he would, but 1987’s shoulder hurt so badly and the floaty feeling of pain killers sounded so good.

Gladio told him a story, which was a very strange Lucian custom where you read about events that didn’t happen from a phone screen and made big gestures with your hands.  By the time the first story was over, it was clear that Lucian pain killers were nothing like Niflheimian ones (or perhaps they were only inferior to Magitek ones?) because, while his shoulder didn’t bother him as much, 1987 didn’t have the soft, dreamy feeling he’d gotten from pain killers before.  He was wide awake and very unimpressed.

Iggy returned.  The tears had cleared from 1987’s eyes, so he could see that the officer was holding a bowl.  He said, in Lucian, “I’ve brought him some oatmeal and an ice pack.  And I’ve texted my uncle, Noctis; you should get a call from His Majesty later to discuss this, on a secure line.  I also put in a request with Abnormal Supplies for some pain medicine that’s a bit more drinkable and fruit-flavored.  And the soldiers here have caught on that there’s a child here and are offering up no end of help, so I managed to acquire not one, but three short films about chocobos.  So I—” he switched to Gralean.  “Oh, there it is.  _There’s_ the light in his eyes.”  Iggy came over to set the bowl down on the small table next to 1987’s bed.  “So you’ve heard of chocobos, I take it?”

1987 felt warm, especially in his face.  He often did, when he thought about chocobos.  “I’m learning animal husbandry,” he said.  “Chocobos come out of eggs, just like Magitek soldiers, but the eggs are white.  And they like to get clean every day, just like MT’s, but they throw the water around and make their feathers really big.”

“They do,” Iggy agreed.  “They splash so much when they bathe.  You’re a very clever boy, to know all that.”

1987 wasn’t a boy.  Not really.  It was the kind of word that pretended to be about anyone, but it was really only for humans.  But that probably meant that his plan of acting vulnerable was working, somehow, despite all his slip-ups.

He’d thought Iggy was smarter than that.  He didn’t understand these humans, who were so quick to show him mercy even when it was clearly not in their self-interest.

“In any case,” Iggy said, speaking Lucian again, “I believe I’ve fixed all your problems before either of you managed to get breakfast, so now I’m going for a walk, still alone, and we’ll see if that doesn’t result in me solving world hunger.”  He dropped some square-ish, plastic-sounding objects on his bed, tossed a green bag to Gladio, and left again.

“Can I prop you up?” Gladio asked.  “It might hurt your shoulder a little, but then you’ll be sitting up, kinda, and we won’t have to move you at all anymore.”

“But I’ll remain functional?” 1987 asked.

“Yeah.  Absolutely.”

1987 nodded.  “Then you can.”

The discomfort was only brief, and then Gladio gave him an ice pack, which felt too cold at first, but then became soothing as the cold sank into 1987’s shoulder.  The ‘oat meal’ was grain-based, like nutrition bars, and sweet.  1987 ate all of it.  He knew better than to ask for vitamin slurry; when you were being held by enemy combatants, you took what they gave you and didn’t complain.  He was determined to come out of this functional and unmodified, and imperfect nutrition wouldn’t kill him.  The Lucians didn’t want him dead, since they’d had plenty of chances to kill him, so the food should be safe.  (And it was so tiring to always worry about whether his food was properly authorized when he didn’t have a choice about what to eat.)

Gladio brought a small computer that he put down on 1987’s lap, already starting to play one of the chocobo films.  The birds in the video were mostly yellow, and occasionally black, not red like the ones 1987 had worked with, but they were still clearly chocobos.  He watched the video and ate his grain slurry.


	4. False Sense of Security

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompto doesn't try to escape, for once.

Ignis was distraught.  It wasn’t yet ten in the morning and the five-year-old his friend had turned into had assumed he was a child rapist, attempted to run off into the wild, screamed disturbingly specific torture threats at his superior officer (Prompto had always liked Captain Leonis so much, looked up to him and preened under his compliments), dislocated his shoulder, and accidentally revealed that he believed he had hatched from an egg.  Iggy was terrible with children to begin with; you had to be very clear about your emotions with them, and he’d spent his whole life learning to hide his thoughts and intentions.

It was near-effortless to arrange for the _things_ a child needed: flavored ibuprofen and an ice pack for his shoulder; a breakfast made only with ingredients that could be found in those disgusting protein bars MT’s seemed to subsist on; some distracting, age-appropriate videos so the three who remained their own ages wouldn’t have to spend all their time trying to entertain the child.  What he had trouble with was caring for Prompto the way a child needed to be cared for, with constant encouragement and frequent touches.  With a regular child, it was more than draining enough; with a child who was liable to go straight off the rails at the mention of a name or upon finding himself alone with only one adult, and who clearly didn’t want to be touched and just as clearly needed to be held, it was exhausting.

Ignis wandered along the inside of the chicken-wire wall of the fort, idly scanning through parts of his book that he’d already read.  He hoped the magic would wear off soon so he could be the friend Prompto needed him to be.  He was achingly curious as to why little H-01987 had responded so dramatically to his name, but asking would only upset the child and his friend clearly did his best not to remember that he had ever been called anything else.

He was glad the chocobo videos had worked.  Prompto adored the birds, and it was a relief to find any similarity between the adult Ignis knew and the traumatized child. ( _Storage pods._   No wonder Prompto was claustrophobic.)

He was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice Captain Leonis kneeling by the fence until he almost ran into him.

“Marshal,” Ignis said, and they nodded to each other.  Leonis continued fixing the fencing; some animal had come and burrowed under, and warped the chicken wire. “I apologize for the way H-01987 behaved earlier.  I had no idea he would react so violently to learning who you are.”  Adults were so easy to talk to.  You just had to say the right things.  With children, you had to say the right things in exactly the right way.

“Guess that’s both of us,” the captain said.  “Kid thinks he’s an MT, right?”

“It would appear more accurate to say that he was one, and then was somehow rehabilitated.”

Cor nodded.  “I’d like to buy whoever helped him a drink.  Gods, they grow them from _people._   I knew they were humanoid, but… MT blood is black, right?  I’m not just making that up?”

“It is,” Ignis said.  “Whatever happened to H-01987 that made him into Prompto, I’m glad his blood still runs red.”

“Ifrit’s ballsack, Scientia, stop calling him that!”

Iggy’s temper flared.  His back straightened.  He was too overwhelmed to play nice.  “What do I call him, then?” he snapped.  “Prompto?  Did you not see the way he cringed when Noctis said it?  When I forgot myself because there was an injured child in front of me and he screwed his eyes shut because it was so difficult for him to hear?  He’s asked us to call him by his designation, and if it spares him any discomfort, that’s exactly what I’ll do.  Don’t presume that my consideration is lesser than yours just because it looks different.”

Captain Leonis shot him a look of only mild surprise, but Ignis shrank under it all the same.  “I apologize,” he said.  The man was a captain; he wasn’t supposed to have to deal with the private drama of his underlings.  “I forgot myself.  It won’t happen again.”

The Marshal shrugged.  “It happens.  I snapped at you first.  You were reading, right?  I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

It was clearly a dismissal, but Iggy was grateful not to have to converse anymore.  He nodded and continued on his way, walking in a slow circuit and pretending to read while his thoughts spiraled.  When he was upset, usually Prompto would make distracting jokes and Gladio would be so sweet with him and Noctis would pretend it wasn’t even a noticeable amount of distress, and all of that would help.  But now Prompto wasn’t anything like himself, Gladio needed to spend his energy caring for him, and Noctis was putting all his energy into giving his usual consideration to the child.  A child who obviously needed it more than Iggy, but that didn’t make it any easier to calm down by himself.  He was desperate to spend a night co-sleeping with Gladio even if they never got enough privacy for anything more than kisses, but that would be impossible when Ignis was needed as the only one who was awake when the child woke up.

.-._.-._.-._

It was one of the hardest things 1987 had ever done, trying not to be lulled into a false sense of security by the Lucian officers.

He was surrounded by softness.  The bed under him was soft.  The smaller pads that kept him sitting up were soft.  Even now that it was day and the room was warmer, the thinnest cloth panel still covered his legs, and that was soft.  The storage clothes he’d been given were soft.  Even the food Iggy had brought him was soft.  And, with the strange lenses out of his eyes, his vision was soft, and so were the chocobos on the screen.  The cold on his shoulder softened the pain, and even if it wasn’t as good as the pain killers 1987 had gotten before, the Lucians were much freer with it than 1987’s trainers had ever been.

His back felt better than it had ever felt.  He was lying right on it and there was none of the sharp pain of whip marks.  Whatever Iggy had done the day before, with the glowing blue liquid, it had worked.

He did understand, though, that he was under constant guard.  His guards considered him too incapacitated to escape, but he knew better.  With good strategizing, even with a sore shoulder, he could escape and return to Haulhex.  He would reunite with his unit and be a hero for cleverly escaping the Lucians and bringing back information about one of their bases.  He just needed to bide his time and wait until the Lucians let their guard down around him.

His trainers had always said: when you were in enemy territory, and you had a feeling that was advantageous for any reason, use it.  So 1987 smiled at the chocobos onscreen the way he’d smiled at chocobos at home.  At Haulhex, he smiled at them because it calmed them and because they made his face do the warm thing, but here, maybe it would calm the guards.

.-._.-._.-._

“Noct.  We need to talk.”

Noctis looked up from his game with a half-smile, already sitting up.  “Everyone needs to talk, these days,” he reminded Gladio.  Spending all their time babysitting, they’d had no time to coordinate a strategy for taking care of the kid, except for a couple emails from Iggy about his diet, and they’d had him for over twelve hours.  He did follow Gladio into the hallway, though.

“The kid’s up to something,” Gladio said.  “I wouldn’t have thought so yesterday.  He’s a lot more clever than a five-year-old should be.  But there’s something really wrong about the way he’s acting.”

That was just paranoid.  “What, watching chocobo videos?  That sounds exactly like him.  He’s injured, Gladio.”

His Shield sighed.  “I know.  It’s just… Yesterday and this morning, he was so vigilant, right?  He didn’t eat food that might be poisoned, he was constantly looking for an opening for escape, and he just… There was something about him that seemed different.  It feels awful to say, but a child soldier wouldn’t relax that quickly.  He’s trying to make us think he’s a regular child with no trauma, and that means he has some sort of plan.”

Noctis grimaced.  “You really think?” he asked.

Gladio nodded.

Noct sighed.  “Well, if he’s strategizing, it has to include letting his shoulder heal, right?  So at least that buys us some time.  Maybe he’ll relax a little for real by the time his plan kicks in.”  It was stupid to hope, and they both knew it, but especially with Prompto changed, it was Noct’s job to be the optimist.  He looked to the side.  “While we’re out here, um… How do you deal with not touching him?”  He looked back up at Gladio.  “I mean, he’s a kid, right?  You’re supposed to hug him and carry him and all that.  But he looks uncomfortable just holding someone’s hand.”

Gladio frowned.  Noct hadn’t mentioned that part of his friendship with Prompto included frequent platonic touch because it kept them both sane, or that he was already feeling a little touch-starved, but he knew Gladio would figure that out.  And, anyway, Gladio was so good with kids because of Iris, and Noct remembered the way he used to hold Iris all the time when she was small, and bounce her and rock her on his hip.  “It feels wrong to me, too,” Gladio admitted.  “We just have to wait for him to initiate it.  Iggy mentioned it a little yesterday, but… when you’re dealing with someone that little, even nice things can be upsetting if they happen too quickly.  We need to let it happen slowly.  Oh!  And.”  Gladio paused, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to say the next part.  “If he does stick around long enough to really realize he’s safe with us, he’s gonna turn into a little monster.  That’s what people do after trauma.  You remember, after the fire, you were fine for about two weeks and then you just completely self-destructed and lashed out at everyone?  He’s gonna do that.  He just needs time to realize he’s safe first.”

It wasn’t something Noctis wanted to see.  It wasn’t something Prompto had ever wanted to let him see.  He wasn’t even supposed to call Prompto by his name, but he hated looking at that barcode tattoo when Prompto had gone to so much effort to hide it, but he had to look at it sometime if he wanted to memorize the numbers pint-size Prompto wanted to be called by.

“When all this is over, he’s gonna owe me a lot of hugs,” Noct told Gladio.  “A _lot._ ”

Gladio smiled a little.  “I think he’ll be fine with that.”  He stepped forward and hugged Noctis, and it was the most relaxing thing that had happened all day.  “In the meantime, we’re all safe, he can’t get his hands on any weapons, and all three of us get to listen to the same chocobo videos over and over again until we’re sick of them.  He slept fine in the bed, our food hasn’t upset his stomach… it could be a lot worse.”

Noct snorted.  “You don’t need to sugarcoat it, Gladio.  My best friend was hatched out of a daemon egg and turned into a child soldier; it could also be a whole lot better.”  Just like always, the tragedy of it would hit him later.  He could get upset over everything that had happened to Prompto once his friend was back and knew he was safe.

Gladio pulled out of the hug.  “You think the egg thing is real?”

He shrugged.  “Prom thinks it is.  Until I’m holding an intel report in my hand that says MT babies are live births who are then told they hatched, I’m gonna believe the guy who was branded and brainwashed as a kid.  I mean, that’s a weird thing to lie about, right?  Like, sure, say it’s better to sleep in a fucking _pod_ because I bet that saves a fuckton of bed space.  Say all food needs to be authorized so they don’t get a taste for real food that’s more expensive to produce.  But eggs?”  He shook his head.  “That’s just fucking stupid if it isn’t real.  There are plenty of other ways to make them think they’re not human.”

Gladio, like Iggy, was always forgetting that Noctis was actually smart.  It wasn’t like he’d spent his entire life being tutored in strategy and diplomacy just to turn into an idiot whose only skill was beating Prompto at King’s Knight.  He probably understood all the things Prompto had been saying better than Gladio did, just because he didn’t get so worked up at even the slightest hint of abuse.  Just because he didn’t wear his intelligence on the surface, like certain royal advisors he could name, didn’t mean he wasn’t paying attention.

So Gladio looked surprised that Noctis had connected the dots like that.  “I guess,” he agreed.  “Doesn’t mean I want to think about it, though.”

Noctis clapped Gladio on the shoulder.  “’S alright,” he said.  “We should probably get back inside, anyway.  I’m not _expecting_ him to get up to anything with a bad shoulder, but I also don’t think I’d be surprised if he managed it.”

.-._.-._.-._

It was almost time for midday nutrition and 1987 still didn’t know what his guards’ deal was.

They weren’t planning to transport him to a better-equipped facility because he’d heard them talk about how they didn’t want to leave until he was ‘better.’  They weren’t planning to kill him or he would already be dead.  And they definitely weren’t planning to torture him because his injury wasn’t anything that would prevent him from being a good torture victim.  They seemed to be grooming him for something, but 1987 wasn’t sure what. 

They had even gone out of their way, after the ‘oat meal’ in the morning but well before midday, to bring him a juice that they said was orange but was really yellow, which tasted a little like vitamin slurry.  When he drank it, Noctis had asked if he liked it, and he didn’t know how to answer.  He had never thought of food as something you liked or didn’t; it was just a necessary part of keeping your body functional.

1987 was quickly learning how hard it was to act vulnerable without becoming vulnerable.  He knew that it could be done, and had heard of techniques a person could use to achieve it, but he had never been trained as a spy, so he had only the regular lessons in withstanding torture.  This wasn’t torture, but something much sneakier, so he had to be vigilant so he didn’t become too sympathetic to the Lucians.

He did like the chocobo videos, though.  In one of them, two chocobos became friends and defended each other against wild animals, and he cried.

1987 spent the rest of the day watching and rewatching the chocobo footage, sleeping (his captors called it ‘napping’ and ‘dozing’ by turns), eating (there were so many kinds of food, and they offered him small amounts of it every couple hours), and talking to the Lucians about their habits.  It was almost sunset by the time he asked what they intended to do with him; he didn’t want to be too obvious about trying to find out, but they seemed like they were trying to answer all his questions honestly, even correcting each other when they were slightly incorrect.

Noctis had shrugged.  “We don’t really _intend_ to do anything.  Take care of you, I guess.  Keep you comfy while your shoulder heals.  But not, like, anything sinister.”

His companions nodded along.  That was obviously a lie, though.  1987 wanted to ask what they had captured an enemy combatant for if they didn’t have a purpose, but he didn’t want to ask too quickly after his previous question.

They kept asking him about chocobos, and it turned out he knew a lot more than them.  Or maybe he only knew more about red chocobos.  Either way, they asked really good questions that he had to think to answer, and not too long after evening nutrition, he fell asleep for the night.


	5. There's Nothing to Worry About. You're Safe.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompto has a meltdown and takes a bath. Iggy and Gladio are cute af. Noctis does some research and administers some life advice. Featuring a special appearance by two rubber chocobos!

1987 woke early again, and just like before, Iggy was awake.  His shoulder ached; he had missed a dose of his strange-flavored medication while he was asleep.  He reached over with his other hand to massage the area near the inflammation, which caused Iggy to glance up.

Iggy was all business.  He wasn’t kind words and good listening, like 1987’s other captors, but he was the one who set timers on his phone to track 1987’s medication schedule and brought him food.  He was good at explaining things, and he wasn’t as condescending as the others.

So it wasn’t really a surprise that Iggy pulled his covers aside and lurched out of bed to pour 1987 a dose of the weird-tasting liquid on his nightstand.  (1987 had learned a lot of new words, and even though Gralean was these officers’ second language, all of the words they’d taught him seemed to be in Gralean.)  He murmured something in Lucian about an ice pack, then changed to Gralean to say, “I’m not certain I want to leave the room until one of the others is awake…  I’m happy to get you an ice pack, but first I’ll need your solemn vow as a Magitek soldier that you won’t try to escape again.”

“What’s ‘vow’?” 1987 asked.

“Do you know what a promise is?”

1987 shook his head.

Iggy knelt by his bed so they were looking right at each other.  “It’s when you say you’re going to do something, and then you do it even if you don’t want to.  It means you aren’t lying.  So do you, H-01987, promise not to leave this room until I get back?”

That sounded very serious, and very Lucian.  They seemed to have all kinds of rules they didn’t talk about, some sort of code that was enforced by feelings instead of by threat of punishment.  1987 understood following rules when there were consequences, but these Lucians seemed to follow rules they’d made up themselves, and get upset when other people didn’t follow the same rules.  Gladio had already stormed out of the room once, yelling, “You don’t do that to a fucking child!” in Lucian.

If 1987 was going to try to name the difference between Iggy and the others, it had to be that Iggy understood he was a Magitek and Noctis and Gladio didn’t.

“What happens if you promise and you lie?” 1987 asked.  Was it a magical bond?  What were the consequences?  Would he die?

Iggy frowned.  “If you promise and you lie, people stop trusting you,” he said.

Was that all?  They already didn’t trust him.  Iggy didn’t want to leave the room until another guard was awake.

“I’ve asked you to promise as a Magitek soldier,” Iggy continued.  “I’m calling on the honor of the Magitek soldiers, and on your dedication to them.  If you break a promise you make in their name, you dishonor them as well as yourself.  You bring shame upon Niflheim.”

“What’s ‘shame’?”  1987 wouldn’t have admitted it, but he really liked how he could ask as many questions as he wanted and his guards always explained.

Iggy frowned.  It was his thinking frown, that just meant he was trying to figure something out.  “It’s when you do something that makes people disapprove of you, and you feel bad for it,” he told 1987.

That was confusing.  “If I do something that makes a person upset, they can just have me punished,” he said.  “Then it’s even.”

Iggy smiled a little sadly.  “Mostly, the people I know don’t rely on physical punishments to communicate their displeasure.  It’s better to be able to use compliments and other positive reinforcements, but in a pinch, shame is a very powerful tool.”

“But that’s how you’d treat a person, right?”  These idiot Lucians were always forgetting he wasn’t a person.  Apparently, even Iggy wasn’t as smart as he seemed.

“I think it’s appropriate for anyone with a brain in their head.  With blood in their veins.  I don’t see why Magiteks should be excluded from basic decency.”

Prompto stayed quiet.  Iggy’s captain killed Magiteks.  That was so much worse than just punishment.  Before he left the base, 1987 would have to find some way to kill the Immortal.  Even if it kept him from leaving, he had to do it.

“My apologies,” Iggy said.  “Here I was getting distracted, and your shoulder is still hurt.  Do you promise to stay here until I return?”

1987 nodded.

“Excellent.  I’ll be back in a moment.”

This was a very good strategy.  If 1987 became known for promising and not lying, no one would expect him to promise and lie later on, when it mattered.  These Lucians were very easy to manipulate.  To stay where he was when his shoulder was sore was easy and logical, and fulfilling his ‘promise’ was something he would have done, anyway.  After a short period of time, Iggy returned with a new ice pack and laid it on 1987’s shoulder.  His hand paused as he was pulling it back, like there was something else he wanted to do, but then he went back to bed.  He set a phone alarm before he went back to sleep.

1987 was experiencing the emotion that Noctis had called “bored” by the time Gladio woke.  The large officer stretched and then offered to get breakfast for everyone.  “Bring us eggs, and if potatoes are an option, he still gets toast,” Iggy said distractedly, like his book was more important to him.  “And remember to set something aside for Noctis.  And remember that Noctis likes ketchup on his eggs because he’s a heathen.”

Gladio laughed a little, then walked over to 1987’s bed.  “Still doing alright?” he asked, smiling at 1987 as if 1987 had never attacked him or his captain.  1987 nodded.  Gladio nodded back and stopped next to Iggy’s bed to press his lips against Iggy’s (a way of showing affection, they’d said) and gently touch his head before he left the room.

It was hours before Noctis woke up, but in the meantime, there were eggs (“These make up some of the protein in your nutrient bars,” Iggy explained) and toast, which was like an aerated nutrient bar that was then singed just a little, with some sort of oil on top.  Gladio and Iggy passed a large bottle of “orange” juice around (1987 still didn’t understand the name when the yellowness of the juice was so obvious) and poured him some, as well.

1987 found the texture of eggs very strange.  They were slippery and too-smooth, and the center was a thick liquid that looked and felt kind of like vitamin slurry, but had almost no flavor.  The strange and varied textures of Lucian foods were still disproportionately distressing to him.  Anyway, any idiot knew that the eggs used in nutrient bars were the eggs of red chocobos, which would have been much larger.

“Does anybody read my emails?” Iggy asked idly.

“Me and Noct both,” Gladio said.  “So you really don’t need to jump on the kiddo’s nutrition the way you do.  You were very clear.”

They were sending data transmissions to each other about H-01987?  That was horrible!  There was an entire nother layer to their capture of him that he’d been completely unaware of.

“I’m not entirely certain Noctis reads them,” Iggy said in the same disaffected tone he’d used before.  “I think, in high school, he got in the habit of reading them, but then putting them out of his mind immediately afterward.  He’ll be the death of me.”

Gladio smiled and said, “You sound bored.  Go take a walk, okay?  Text your weird puzzle club.  Get some exercise.  I’ve got things covered in here.”

“H-01987 needs to bathe today,” Iggy said as he got out of bed and started changing into daytime clothes.  “Don’t forget.  I won’t encroach on your physical therapy knowledge as far as keeping his shoulder secure, but I would prefer that he be clean by the time I return.”

“How _is_ that shoulder holding up?” Gladio asked, turning to 1987.

“Still mostly nonfunctional, but it shouldn’t inhibit other movement,” 1987 told him.

“He was rubbing the muscles around it earlier,” Iggy added.  “His next dosage should be around one in the afternoon.  Ooh, if I remember correctly, yesterday morning one of the men was bragging about his skill with knives and daggers; I’ll see if I can’t show him a real fight.”

Lucians had sparring, and even mixed-weight sparring, as 1987 had learned the previous day.  The officers had also made it very clear that 1987 wouldn’t be allowed to participate, and said he couldn’t watch if he wouldn’t ‘behave himself,’ which seemed to involve staying quiet unless he was cheering on his enemies.  1987 was not prepared to dishonor Niflheim in that way.

After Iggy left, Noctis was still asleep.  It was just 1987 and Gladio, though attempting escape was certain to wake Noctis.  But there was one important question he’d been edging around that Iggy and Noctis were both too smart to answer.  Gladio had become very sympathetic to him, so he was the best target.

“Why did you capture me if you have no plans for what to do with me?” he asked.

Gladio looked over at him and considered his words.  “Believe it or not, we didn’t realize we were capturing you,” he said.  “There was a lot of confusion, and at the end of it, there you were.”

“Then why do you refuse to return me to my unit?” 1987 asked.  “If you’re having difficulty finding them, any Niflheim base will accept me for redeployment.”  There must be someone they could trade 1987 for who would be much more use to them than a partially-functional MT soldier.

Gladio sighed.  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” he said.  “Lucis has a lot of laws about what you can and can’t do to a child.  And the things your trainers have done to you?  Beating you, first of all.  Giving you a number instead of a name.  There are things they’ve done to you that we don’t have laws against because no one thought someone could be that inhuman.  If we send you back, we’re sending you to a place that we, as officers of Lucis who have to uphold its laws, can’t let you go to.”

“Then don’t think of me as a child,” 1987 told him.  That was the opposite of protocol, but from what he’d seen, it was likely to increase Gladio’s sympathetic feelings toward him.  “A child is a person.  For me, training with my unit is the correct thing.  MT soldiers are a tool of the Empire; if you expect me to be a person, you’ll only be disappointed.”  Tears were coming out of his eyes and he didn’t know why.  He was under very little physical stress.  He wasn’t lying or speaking emotionally.  He was just stating a fact, one which had been true for as long as he could remember.

Gladio leaned down and put an arm around 1987’s back and a hand behind his head.  1987’s shoulder should have hurt, but the ice pack was still there and Gladio was holding his arm against his side, the way it was most comfortable.  It wasn’t a restraining hold, or if it was, it wasn’t a very effective one.  Gladio’s thumb rubbed softly up and down against 1987’s hair.  That was when 1987 recognized what he was doing as affectionate, like how he treated Iggy.

Something in H-01987’s brain, or maybe in his chest, broke and he started crying in a way that was beyond crying.  Everything Gladio had said sounded so _good_ and _kind_ and _comforting,_ and it wasn’t anything that 1987 deserved after being a mediocre soldier who got himself captured _._ Suddenly, the tears coming out of his eyes weren’t the thing that gave him away; that was the howling coming out of his throat.  Gladio pressed his lips to 1987’s head and shushed him.  He picked him up off the bed and held 1987 against his own body, still keeping his arm secure so it barely hurt, and saying soft, soothing words, the kind 1987 hadn’t heard anyone use since he stopped being Prompto and got his tattoo and designation.

Noctis was on his feet in moments, but 1987 didn’t hear him get out of bed over all the noise he was making.  He only heard Noctis when he said, “Is he hurt?  What happened?  Is he gonna be alright?”

“He’ll be fine,” Gladio said calmly.  “Get him some water, would you?  He just needs to cry this out.”  He put his lips on 1987’s hair again, and then continued saying kind things that 1987 hadn’t earned.

This was a kind of crying that 1987 had never done before.  It was a kind that would have earned him horrible punishment and probably two meals without rations at his home base.  He wasn’t sure how long it was that he was unable to calm down, but even when he stopped wailing, he spent a long time whimpering and hiccupping and he knew it was Gladio holding him and talking to him that helped him calm down more than his own self-discipline.  He’d never lost control of his feelings before.  He hadn’t thought he had enough feelings to lose control of.  He didn’t know what part of the Lucians’ plan this was, but they had done something to him with their soft food and big beds and chocobo videos that had broken him more effectively than torture could have, and 1987 suddenly knew he was lost and would never be able to be as good as even the worst Magitek soldier ever again.

Gladio put him down on the bed again, propped up by pillows, and moved the ice pack into place.  Then he sat on the side of the bed and petted 1987’s hair, the same way 1987 had pet chocobos during animal husbandry training.  He offered 1987 the cup of water that Noctis had brought, saying, “Here, are you thirsty?  Crying can take a lot out of you.”  He smiled gently, still smoothing 1987’s hair like he hadn’t just ruined his future.

1987 took the water because he _was_ thirsty, and tired, and he didn’t want to talk to anyone anymore.  Maybe they wouldn’t ask him questions while he slowly sipped the water.

“There you go,” Gladio said in that same soft tone.  “That’s better, isn’t it?  There’s nothing to worry about.  You’re safe.”  He leaned down and put his lips on 1987’s forehead, and it felt really good, even though he was the one who had ruined everything somehow.

1987 could feel his eyes closing.  Gladio was right; crying that hard was exhausting.  And sleeping in a bed was just so _easy_ after spending three years in a too-small pod.

.-._.-._.-._

Prompto’s eyes fluttered shut and his breathing evened out, and Gladio stood up and looked at Noctis.  “I need you to take over,” he whispered.  “I need to get out of here before I scream.  Sorry he’s woken you up two days in a row.”

Noct shook his head.  “It doesn’t matter,” he whispered back.  “Go.  You’re the only one who’s any good at this, so take care of yourself.”

Gladio nodded.  As soon as he was out of the room, he rubbed at his temples; his headache had never really stopped, and Prompto’s fit hadn’t exactly helped.

He made his way down to the training yard, hoping he could steal a few minutes with his boyfriend.  He would fight every Crownsguard in the fort if he could get those long, gentle fingers combing through his hair for two minutes.

He didn’t have to do anything of the kind.  Iggy was sparring when he got to the training yard, and when he saw Gladio, he went into full offensive mode and quickly won the match.

“Did something happen?” Iggy asked as he wiped sweat from his face and caught his breath.  “Did H-01987 have a problem with bathing?”

Gladio shook his head as they walked back toward the fort.  Maybe they could find a corner of the garage where no one would see them.  “We never got that far.  I fucked it up.  I shouldn’t have…  I told him we can’t return him to his unit because of human rights offenses, and he asked me to treat him like a _thing_ instead of a person, and I just…  I forgot everything I said about letting him initiate things and I hugged him, and then he started sobbing, just a total meltdown, and I got him to sleep again, but I don’t know what to do.”  He lowered his voice and added, “I really wanted to see you.”

Iggy put a hand on his shoulder, comforting and guiding at once.  They ended up in a linen closet, and Gladio could feel his shoulders relax as Iggy threaded long fingers through his hair and pulled him down for a kiss.  He listened to his lover tell him all about how noble and kind he was between kisses until Iggy gave up and just kept kissing him.  They had a long enough makeout session to make up for three nights of sleeping apart, and Gladio’s headache started to ease.  They complimented each other for how well they were dealing with the circumstances, and then Gladio pointed out that he should get back upstairs because there was no way Noctis knew how to bathe a five-year-old.

Iggy leaned against him, arms around Gladio’s neck in a loose hug.  “We’ve received two rubber chocobos, one green and one purple, and a chocobo plush to help him sleep,” he said.  “I swear, is there even merchandise of any other animal?  I could have sworn there were stuffies of coeurls and anaks when we were young.  Housecats, even.  Now there’s nothing but chocobos, everywhere you look.”  On the other hand, Iggy was the one tucking chocobo merchandise into Gladio’s pockets.  “Thank goodness he loves the things.”

Gladio cupped Iggy’s face in one hand and kissed him on the forehead.  “You’re amazing,” he reminded him.  “You know that, right?  On and off the battlefield, and especially in a weird emergency like this.”

“Flatterer,” Iggy accused.  “What about _you_ stepping up and showing us what excellent child care skills you have, hm?  Iris was never that difficult.”

“When Iris was that little, I was a preteen,” Gladio reminded him.  “It was just as hard, but because I was a needy little shit, too.”

Iggy laughed softly.  Gladio could have listened to that sound all day.  “Yes, I remember,” he said.  “And we both had to deal with Noctis, too, in full Gremlin Mode.”

Gladio wrapped his arms around Iggy’s waist and just leaned against him, his head over Iggy’s shoulder.  “You grew up so well,” he sighed into Iggy’s ear.

“I could say the same for you,” Iggy told him.  “A fine, upstanding young Shield, escorting his prince through even the strangest adventures…”

“You make it sound like he’s the one I’m in love with,” Gladio joked, and kissed Iggy’s shoulder because he barely had to move his head to do it.

“I think we both know love has to come after fealty, for both of us,” Iggy said.  “Though that doesn’t mean I love you any less.”

“Do you know,” Gladio asked, “I’ve had a headache for two days and kissing you for a few minutes finally made it better?  Gods, I love you.”

Iggy rubbed his neck.  “You’ve had a headache?  You should have said.  You need to take something for that, Gladio.”

“I’ll live,” Gladio told him, and pulled back so he could kiss him.  “I should get back to the room.  I just wish we got to see each other more.”

“We should stay on for a bit after Prompto recovers,” Iggy suggested.  “Take some time for ourselves.  Prompto and Noctis will probably disappear for a day or more.  Fort Cauthess can accommodate us while we recover.”

“Turning into a traumatized kid and back has got to rack you up crazy amounts of mental health leave,” Gladio pointed out.  “If he remembers any of it, at least.  I hope he doesn’t.”

“With our luck, he certainly will,” Iggy said.  “If you can get him through this part – and, despite what you say, you’re doing a spectacular job – then I can get him through that part.”

Gladio sighed.  “Speaking of that, I should get back upstairs.  I don’t think he’ll be asleep that long, and I should be there when he wakes up.”

Iggy smiled.  “I think Noctis can handle things for a few minutes,” he whispered, and leaned up to kiss Gladio again.

.-._.-._.-._

When H-01987 woke up, only Noctis was there.  He was sitting in a chair next to 1987’s bed, playing on the game console he’d shown 1987 the day before.  He closed it when 1987 woke up and tucked the stylus away.

“Hey, little guy,” he said, smiling.  “How are you feeling?”

1987 remembered how good it had felt to be held by Gladio, and how lonely it had been not to have a place in the world anymore, and his eyes went hot and his throat swelled up and tears started to spill out of his eyes.

“Why don’t you come sit over here with me?” Noctis asked, and he pulled the sheet off of 1987 and brought him over to sit sideways across his legs.  He wasn’t as good as Gladio at keeping 1987’s arm still, but he wasn’t bad at it, either.  He leaned back and forth, rocking 1987 gently from side to side and holding 1987’s head against his shoulder.  And 1987 let him, because he couldn’t be an MT anymore – he knew he couldn’t – so he might as well take whatever comfort he was given until someone realized he was useless and deactivated him.

They were still doing that, even though 1987 had stopped crying, when Gladio returned.  “Hey, is everything alright?” he asked quietly.

1987 nodded.  Noctis said, “Yeah, he’s fine.  Got a little worked up right after he woke up, but it’s fine now, right, H-01987?”

1987 nodded again.

“Great,” Gladio said, still keeping his voice down.  “I’m gonna go run a bath.  The soldiers sent us rubber chocobos for the kid to play with.”

A bath was appropriate, 1987 thought distantly.  A bath was inefficient and easy, good for stupid things like chocobos.  Humans probably took baths.  H-01987 was probably no better than a human now, no matter how many MT treatments he got.  The part of him that was better than a human must have been what broke inside him earlier.  That must have been what the Lucians were doing to him.  A high-pitched whining sound came out of his throat and his eyes teared up again, but Noctis was still rocking him, and shushed him quietly when he made noise.

H-01987 was no better than he had been as Prompto, but he wanted to hold onto his designation for as long as his captors would let him.

Noctis moved his arm so it was supporting 1987’s legs instead of his head.  He stood up, carrying 1987, and went to the bathroom, where a very large faucet was loudly pouring water into an oblong tub.  He said, “I’m gonna put you down now, okay?” and 1987 nodded.  He was set down on his feet, and then Noctis said, “Alright.  I’m gonna keep an eye out outside so we don’t have any more escape attempts, but I think Gladio knows a lot more about bath time than I do.”

“I have never resisted cleaning time,” 1987 reminded them.  They did have his file, didn’t they?  He was certain they did.  “With self-operated controls, I shouldn’t require assistance.”

Gladio turned to him and said, “Oh!  Okay.  Sorry, do you even like baths?  I guess I didn’t think to ask.”

“They’re acceptable.”  Appropriate, even, but 1987 didn’t want to say that.

“Alright.  How does this temperature feel?” Gladio asked, dipping his hand in the water.

1987 stepped forward as Gladio pulled away and put his hand in the water bath.  It was surprisingly warm.  “It’s good,” he said, surprised.  “I didn’t know it could be warm.”

Gladio pulled a glass panel across the space where 1987 would have stepped into the tub, and he turned off the water.  “Just double-checking: you know about soap, shampoo, and conditioner?” he asked.

1987 frowned.  “I know ‘soap,’” he said.  “I don’t know the other two.”

“They’re for hair,” Gladio told him.  “Shampoo is soap for hair, and conditioner is… Well, this one’s in with the shampoo, so just worry about washing your hair.  It’s gentler than regular soap; you’ll like it.”  He slid the glass panel back to where it was before and pulled some colorful objects out of his pockets, just to toss them into the bath.  “Those are to play with, if you want.  They’re little chocobos that float.  You can make up stories with them.”

That was really weird, but 1987 remembered that other Lucians had sent the little plastic chocobos because they believed they were that important, so they must have some meaning.  He would see if there was any part of cleaning himself that required a small, plastic chocobo for some reason.

Gladio and Noctis both left, and 1987 saw that clothes had been left for him next to the sink.  He carefully unclasped and discarded his shirt, and less carefully removed his socks and pants, and left them on the floor to collect later.  He stepped into the bath, knocking one of the chocobos with his foot, and leaned forward to wet his hair.

Standing in such deep water (it almost reached his knees) proved difficult, and the bottom of the tub was slippery, so he sat down instead.  He washed his hair with the liquid labeled “All in 1 Shampoo and Conditioner” and rinsed it in the warm water, then washed the rest of his body as methodically as he always did.  When he was done, he still hadn’t found a use for the rubber chocobos.

Gladio had said you told them stories, right?  1987 didn’t know any stories, except the strange ones that Gladio and Noctis had told him, that he hadn’t really memorized.  Maybe you just had to treat them gently, like someone you would tell a story to.

1987 picked up the purple chocobo and put his lips on the top of its soft plastic head for just a moment, where it had a little bump of ruffled crest feathers.  He waited a moment to see what would happen, but it just stayed the same as it had been the whole time.  He did the same thing with the green one, and it also did nothing, so he stood up and got out of the bath.

Everything except the chocobos was straightforward: dry off with a towel (careful not to bump his sore shoulder), put on the change of clothes, gather his old ones and the towel for laundering, and knock on the door of the bathroom because his useful hand was too full to turn the doorknob.

Gladio opened the door looking a little surprised.  “You didn’t want a longer bath?” he asked, taking the laundry 1987 was holding.

1987 shook his head.  “I cleaned myself, but I was uncertain of how to use the rubber chocobos.”

Gladio smiled and walked past 1987 to pull a lever that made the water start to drain.  “That’s fine.  They’re not important.  I just thought they might be fun.”

1987 only knew the term ‘fun’ because Noctis had described it, and he still wasn’t entirely clear on the concept.  It seemed to be unproductive activities that you did to ease your stress.  It was a very human custom; Magitek soldiers overcame stress through willpower.

“I will continue trying to use the rubber chocobos,” 1987 said.  “…The next time I take a bath.”  He had to learn to act human now.  Maybe he could practice on the chocobos.

1987 was escorted back to the storage room (bed room, Iggy had called it a bed room) by the two guards and lifted onto the bed.  Gladio showed him stretches to do with his arm that would make his shoulder heal correctly.  They were painful and he didn’t have the range of motion he was used to, but Gladio assured him he would get better at them the more he did them, as long as he rested enough in between.

The resting was mostly watching the chocobo videos some more times.  1987 liked to watch them and think about the way real chocobos’ feathers felt under his hands.  When he did that, he could feel his face turn warm.  Staying put was difficult, but it was what he had been advised to do for medical reasons, and disobeying medical advice would earn you punishment once you were well.  He wanted to believe that the Lucians didn’t use punishment, but he knew better than to hope.

.-._.-._.-._

When Prompto turned into a kid, the first thing Noctis did was get close to him.  His attempt at being friendly had backfired spectacularly, but he’d still gotten close enough to get a feel for the magic at play before Prompto barfed on the floor and all the overly-cautious biohazard advice Noctis had ever gotten made him back right up all the way across the room.

He was pretty sure it was the only thing keeping his friends calm: he’d investigated the magic and determined that it would wear off.  He was about 95% sure, he’d said at the time.

They were on day three now, and he wasn’t sure at all.

It wasn’t wearing off like impermanent magic, was the thing.  It should at least have eased up a little by now.  But Prompto was stuck in a sort of static state of being exactly the same amount younger as he had been before.  It seemed like he should be skipping days by now, or something weirder (Noct didn’t want to know what distorted, wearing-off time magic looked like, but he did want his friend back).  He knew it was selfish to think about what he wanted when the current Prompto had dropped straight from Hell into Fort Cauthess, but he wanted the version of Prompto he’d spent his entire teenaged life with.  He wanted someone who would hear his reassurances that everything was alright.

Gladio and the chocobo videos were keeping the kid entertained.  Noctis could probably quote all three of the videos line-for-line, and it had only been a day and a half.  Prompto didn’t seem to be bored, though.  A little restless, sure, since he’d clearly lived a very active life and now he was on bed rest.  Noctis knew he and Gladio were both waiting for the next big blowup, but if Prompto could sit still for just a little longer and heal his shoulder up a little more, it was worth a little restlessness.  Curatives were good in a pinch, or when there was a clean cut, but especially for a kid, healing too fast could really fuck you up.  Noctis had only been using curatives for a couple weeks and his body already felt like it was built wrong in parts.  His arms and legs, especially, had weird, lumpy bits where they’d been cut and healed too many times.  He wouldn’t want that for a child, even if that child turned back into Prompto tomorrow.

They needed to know more about him.  It was intrusive, and he hated it, and it felt wrong to background-check his own best friend, but they needed better intel and he was pretty sure he was the only one with the stomach to get it.

He put his DS away in the Armiger and slipped his phone out of his pocket.  He was usually on one or the other, so no one would pay any attention, even Prompto.  He logged into the military intel database with all five of his passwords and went for a wiki walk concerning his friend H-01987.

The data he got was ten years old, but Prompto was safe in Insomnia ten years ago, so that was fine.  Noctis had never read the Niflheimian files before, always opting for intelligence reports that had been condensed and sorted through for the most important information.  Now he wished he’d looked at the source data more carefully.  The file on Prompto read:

Magitek Ground Soldier Designation 01987

Egg group: H

Unit: 204

Assignment: Haulhex Armory

Daemon Blood Injections: 71

Nursery Name: Prompto

Current age: 10 years

Average speed: 10mph

Average jumping height: 13in

Matches Won: 38%

Willpower: 57%

Magical Status: Ungifted

Recurring Concerns: Resists Storage; Responds to Nursery Name 15% of the time; Low Aggression; Treatments Rejected Despite Microdosing

Training: Chocobo Husbandry, Tracking

Notes: Escaped age eight (suspect Aranea Highwind), whereabouts unknown

Noctis wrote all the unfamiliar terms in his Notes app.  The fuck was a “nursery name,” and why would you record it?  And, more importantly, why would you call someone by it if responding to it was a “concern”?  How were “egg groups” assigned?  Time, probably?  Or something else?  And who would grow people at an _armory?_   And _who the actual fuck had injected Noct’s best friend with daemon blood and how could he murder them?_

He researched Magitek terms he should have looked up years ago.  He’d always had so much to do, and never enough time.  Listening to _Chocobo Chums: Water Wishes_ for the sixtieth time, though, he had more than enough time to spare.  He added information to his Notes doc every time he learned something, and ended up with:

 **Egg group** – assigned by coloring.  Egg group H (Prom) has clusters of spots (freckles?) and MTs from group H have light skin that freckles, fair coloring, and unusual skill sets (the fuk??)

 **Nursery name** – they call the babies (hatchlings?) by names and treat them like regular babies so they don’t die of SIDS and failure to thrive.  They switch to designations when they turn three bc the MT program is run by monsters.

 **Daemon blood** – Literally how they turn regular kids into MTs.  Fuck me.

 **Haulhex** – It’s still an armory but one of the weapons it manufactures is PEOPLE

 **Diamonds** – Denotes a Magitek.  If they have magic, they get a diamond and a star.  Magic appears when they’re infants

     **Side note from Hell:** they barcode them when they’re three.

 **Storage pods:** Exactly what I thought, but still unexpectedly disturbing.

 **Willpower:** Literally an obedience score, like fucking dressage but with children doing military skills

 **Aranea Highwind:** A high-ranking Resistance fighter and someone worth buying a drink for.

Iggy had sent an email around about what “nutrient bars” and “vitamin slurry” were made of; Noctis could definitely send one detailing his research.  This was probably way more classified, but fortunately they all had very secure phones.  He sent the list of Pint-Size Prompto’s stats and the glossary he’d written himself, with a disclaimer about how the notes were his own personal notes and there was no reason to get pissy about the phrasing.

“Hey, Gladio,” he said casually while Prom made faces at the screen.  “I’m sending you an email.  Don’t punch a wall.”  He sent it to both his friends.

Gladio glanced at his phone when it chimed, and glowered at Noctis.  “You didn’t.”

Noct shrugged.  “I got us more intel.  It’s more he doesn’t have to tell us when he’s better.”

Gladio put his phone away, clearly not ready to read the report Noctis had assembled.  He probably knew it was more than he could handle.  It was probably more than Noctis could handle, from the way he wanted to roll over and fall asleep.

It took Iggy five minutes to respond, even though his average responding time was around ten seconds.  Maybe he was taking a shower after sparring.

Maybe he had as hard a time reading those things as Noctis did, and needed some time to process them.

 _Thank you for researching this for us,_ Iggy wrote back.  _I’ll try to do some more general research on the MT program later.  How do you stomach reading about them?_

Iggy had compiled reports for Noctis for years, on all kinds of topics.  During one particularly bad epidemic in Insomnia when Noctis was fourteen, the public health report Iggy printed and placed in his hands had been so upsetting, Noctis couldn’t read more than a paragraph or two at a time.  A report on Outlands poverty when he was seventeen had almost reached that level of gruesomeness, especially the part about lack of dental care.  Noct felt a little left behind as the only one who still hadn’t reached that level of horror with Prom’s time magic episode.  He was tiny and didn’t know how to handle his emotions and kept referring to the horrible things that had been done to him, but as he watched the chocobos splashing in the water, he made the same lopsided smile that Noct’s best friend did, and that had to mean something.

 _We just all have our strengths, I guess,_ Noctis wrote back.  _Makes me want to smash some fucking labs tho_

Almost instantly, Iggy wrote, _That does sound enticing._

“Hey, I’m gonna check my email.  Gonna be a few minutes,” Gladio said, and got up and left the room.  He was probably off to run or spar or whatever it was that helped him wind down, just as soon as he read Noct’s email.

.-._.-._.-._

Gladio left and then it was only Noctis and 1987.  And that was a little odd, because 1987 could probably take Noctis in a fight, if he tried.  With both arms, at least.  He was the smallest and scrawniest, not built for fighting.

Noctis walked over and sat in the chair Gladio used to tell stories.  “Hey, how’re the Chocobo Chums?” he asked.

He had just sent Gladio a transmission that might be distressing.  It was probably about deactivating 1987: when it would be done, certainly.  How it would be handled, probably.  Noctis was as two-faced as anyone, and 1987 could never read him.

1987 said, “They’re swimming” and kept his eyes on the screen.

“How about you?  Are you alright?  Need a new ice pack?”  Noctis put his hand on 1987’s ice pack and it turned colder and hard again.  He didn’t have to pretend to be uncomfortable; the cold always took time to get used to.

Under Noctis’ eye, 1987 was aware of all the ways he’d made it clear he was dysfunctional.  Usually, functioning level was not analyzed during medical treatment, but their drugs kept him lucid and they hadn’t put him in a sling or brace even though it was past time for him to return to the field.  He’d failed test after test, especially his failure to use the rubber chocobos.  They seemed to be analyzing him for his humanity, and even though he wasn’t an MT, he didn’t know the first thing about being human.

“You’re crying,” Noctis said.  He reached over to touch 1987’s hair, and 1987 flinched.  He pulled his hand back.  “Sorry.  Sorry.  I thought you liked that earlier.  I’ll keep my hands to myself.”  No, 1987 needed to seem like a human child, and the humans were always touching each other.  They touched hands, bumped each other with their arms, put their hands on each other’s arms.  Gladio and Ignis touched each other’s hair all the time, and touched each other with their lips.

“You should touch my hair,” 1987 said.  “I should stop reacting.”

Noctis smiled.  “You have it a little backwards,” he said.  “It’s supposed to feel good.  If it doesn’t, then I need to stop.”

“I want to learn to be human,” 1987 said, and he cried, but the normal kind that didn’t overwhelm him.

“Heyyy, hey,” Noctis said in a soft, low tone, “It isn’t something you have to learn. You’re doing just fine.”

“Then why are you preparing to deactivate me?”  He shouldn’t have said that, should have kept his suspicions to himself, should never have let on that he knew.

“Preparing to what now?”  Noctis twitched when he processed 1987’s words.  “No.  Gods, no!  We never!   _I’d_ never!  Ohhh, my gods, _that’s_ why you’re upset?  I’ve never – Look.”  He was breathing a little hard, like just taking in the phrase had been tiring to him.  “I’m not gonna hurt a five-year-old, okay?  Even if you were actively trying to murder me, I’d go, wow, how do we put this kid in an environment where he can’t hurt anyone?  We’re not gonna deactivate you, okay?  No one’s dying.  Watch your video.”

If Gladio had said that, 1987 probably would have believed it.  Noctis was always up to something, and he hid it by pretending to wear his emotions on the surface.  1987 knew a mask when he saw one.

He returned to watching the Chocobo Chums cross Lake Sillyweed.

“I’ll be over there,” Noctis said.  “On my bed.”  He was standing up.  “I know you’d probably prefer that I was out of the room, but it’s what I can do.  I wasn’t getting close to try to threaten you.”

“If you don’t want to deactivate me, then teach me,” 1987 said.  “I’m not good at learning, but I’ll try.”  He had always been slow to pick up techniques and concepts. He would just have to work harder, but with no threat of punishment, he didn’t know how.

“Nahhhh, you’re perfect,” Noctis said in that soft tone again as he eased down onto his bed and pulled his game system out of the extradimensional space where he kept it.  “You’re good at so many things.  There’s nothing I can teach you; you just have to be you.  There are all different ways to be human, and they’re all right.  No one’s gonna deactivate you, and you’re in no danger.  We’re keeping you safe.”

“Does being human mean I have to like Cor Leonis?”  He couldn’t think of anything more opposite to what he’d been taught.

Noctis smiled.  “Not necessarily.  A lot of Niflheimians don’t, I’m sure.  Even some people at the Lucian court don’t like him that much, even the ones who like what he does for the country.  He’d probably appreciate an apology for saying you hope he’s tortured, though.  That’s a pretty rough thing to hear.”

1987 had learned “apology” from Gladio.  It was never needed at Haulhex; as he’d pointed out to Iggy before, if a human had ever had a problem with him, they could just have him punished, and then they were even.  Apology was for when you made a person feel bad in a way they couldn’t quantify into lashes or reduced rations.

“Is apologizing correct?” 1987 asked.

Noctis bit the inside of his mouth, which meant he was thinking.  “If you feel sorry, it is.  If you don’t, then it’s just empty.  I’ve apologized to plenty of people because I felt like I was supposed to, and it doesn’t fix anything or make it better.  Then you’re the one who feels bad, so nothing’s really resolved.”

“I don’t feel sorry,” 1987 said.  “I still don’t know what sorry feels like.  Is it like shame?  Iggy told me about shame.”

Noctis shrugged.  “I’d say they’re kind of similar.  They’re both when you feel bad for doing something wrong.  How did your armory handle emotions?”

“It didn’t,” 1987 told him.  “Emotions are irrelevant.  An MT is free to feel whatever they feel as long as it doesn’t interfere with their performance.”

Noctis looked right at him for an unusually long amount of time.  Then he said, “I know our lives are very different, and my training hasn’t hurt me the same way yours has, but I think I understand you more than I'd like to admit."  He looked very tired.  1987 felt that, for once, he was being completely honest.  He turned back to his videogame and 1987 watched his video some more.

“There are two feelings you might have if you let us keep you around and treat you decently,” Noctis added after a few minutes.  “The first is called angry, and it’s where you say mean things to your friends even though you don’t want to.  The second one’s called depressed, and it’s where you sleep all day and don’t care about anything, which sounds like it should be great but it’s actually terrible.  They’re normal things to feel after you’ve been treated badly, and if you start feeling them, we can talk about ways to make them not feel so bad.”

It took a moment to take that in.  “You don’t say mean things to your friends,” 1987 pointed out.

“I’m scaring you on purpose,” Noctis said, as if it was just a fact.  “I don’t know if you think of me as a friend, but I do think you’re a good kid.  You’ve been scared since you got here and we have all these confusing words and customs and you’re still doing your best to behave and be honorable.  And here I am, I’m old enough to know better and I’m still dumping my scary, grown-up problems on you.”

“What’s ‘scary?” 1987 asked.

Noctis sighed, smiling a little.  “It’s something that makes you feel fear.  You know ‘fear,’ right?”

1987 nodded.

Noctis nodded absently and returned to his game again without explaining why 1987 was supposed to be fearful.

.-._.-._.-._

Gladio came back in time to give 1987 another dose of pain medication.  When he came into the room, Noctis asked, “Hey, did you have a nice walk or whatever?” and Gladio smirked and Noctis raised his eyebrows.  1987 continued watching Chocobo Roundup.

“Hey, did you do any PT with him?” Gladio asked.

“I barely do PT with myself,” Noctis scoffed.

Gladio groaned.  “That’s not something to brag about, Noct.”  He smiled at 1987 as he sat down in the chair next to the bed.  “Hey, H-01987, can you sit up for me again?  It’s the same stretches as earlier.”  1987 nodded.  As Gladio helped him sit all the way up, he added, “If we do a really good job, maybe Noct will do _his_ stretches and he won’t faceplant the next time we’re in the field.”

“That was once,” Noctis protested, but he put his game system away in a quick, blue flash and rolled off his bed and onto the floor.  1987 was paying a lot more attention to lifting and rotating his arm correctly than he was to anything Noctis was doing, but it didn’t look like Noctis’ stretches were for his shoulder, anyway.

1987 was done long before Noctis, which Gladio assured him was just because Noctis was further along in recovery.  Watching his captor do push-ups and leg stretches was a lot less interesting than watching more Chocobo Roundup, but 1987 did glance over from time to time, out of interest.

Iggy joined them for most of the afternoon.  He told really good stories; he didn’t make his emotions as big as Gladio did, so they were easier to follow, even if he didn’t give all the characters different voices. 

He also didn’t seem as tired when he was reading as he did when he talked to 1987.  His Gralean accent was so soothing to listen to, and it made sleeping easy.


	6. Easy to Confiscate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Escape Attempt Number 3: The Escapening

1987 jerked to alertness when he heard a mechanical whirr.  It was a lot like the sound of a storage pod unlocking.  His first thought was that he didn’t have to sleep anymore; he could be in the open.  His second thought was that he was already in an open “bed” instead of a close storage pod, and he was under guard.  Noctis was holding a metallic box with circles on one side.

“Oh.  Sorry for waking you up,” Noctis said.  “I guess I didn’t think the camera was that loud.  We were just… It was silly.  We put the rubber chocobos on you and took a picture.”

“You mean you did,” Iggy muttered from across the room.

Noctis’ face turned pinker.  “Yeah.  Pretty much just me.  It should be cute, though.  Here.”  1987 tilted his head for a better look at the screen Noctis showed him.  It was the first time he noticed the soft object held in his arm.  “Oh, and that’s the stuffed chocobo Gladio also brought for you,” he said, and 1987 realized he was carrying it by the neck instead of the belly, which was a really bad idea, and he didn’t want to do that to even a fake chocobo, so he adjusted his grip on it, knocking the rubber chocobos off his shoulder in the process.  Fortunately, Noctis grabbed them both and put them on the nightstand.

“Is that how you play with rubber chocobos?” 1987 asked quietly.  He didn’t like asking with the others in the room, but maybe they would be merciful and ignore him.

Noctis shrugged.  “You can play with them however you want,” he said, which was unhelpful.

“Gladio said to tell them stories,” 1987 pushed, hoping he could pull some kind of guidance out of Noctis.

“Yeah, you can do that,” Noctis agreed.  “Or you can tell stories where they’re the main characters.”  He grabbed the rubber chocobos and knelt so he was facing the same way as 1987.  “Like, maybe this one’s up on a cliff and this one’s down below, and you want to be able to see it,” he said, holding the purple one up high and the green one below eye level.  Then he held them on the same level and said, “Maybe they’re friends and they wanna snuggle,” and moved them together so their necks were touching.  “You can tell whatever kind of story you want, that way.  Maybe one of them hurt its wing and the other one has to help it.”

“I don’t want them to be hurt,” 1987 said, feeling his stress reactions happen.  His heart was beating fast.

“That doesn’t have to be the kind of story you tell,” Noctis said.  “I just.  I, um.  When I was young, I got hurt very badly.  Telling stories about someone who wasn’t me, but who was injured like me, helped me a lot.  And, before that happened, I would tell stories about characters who had all the same obligations as me.  It can help to ask, ‘how would somebody else handle this?’  Then you can decide if you want to make the same decisions as the characters.”  He had that look again, that tired look that 1987 trusted, even though he was trying to hide it with a smile.  He stood back up and put the rubber chocobos on the nightstand again and smiled in his usual, insincere way.  “Anyway.  You can take my advice or not.  No one’s gonna listen in on you when you’re taking a bath, so you can do whatever you want.”

“They’re only for baths?”  Then why was Noctis putting them on him when he was in bed?

“Usually, yeah.  Unless you’re taking pictures of a kid with as many chocobos on him as possible.  You’ve got hair like a chocobo, too.  I have a friend who likes photography, and I thought he’d like the theme.”

“Chocobos don’t have hair,” 1987 said.  “They have feathers, and they can fluff them out.  When they do it on their heads, it’s called a crest.  The males do that so the females will think they’re good mating stock.”

“Hey, Iggy, do you have the time?” Gladio asked from the other side of the room.

Just after four,” Iggy told him.

“Oh, man, that’s PT time _and_ food time,” Gladio said.  “Noct, you wanna grab something from the mess?”  Noctis nodded and left, and Gladio replaced him.  “How’s your shoulder feeling since we started doing stretches?” he asked.  “Does it hurt, or does the hurting go away after a couple minutes?”

That was a very strange question that 1987 had never heard before, but he _thought_ Gladio was asking if he was capable of completing his course of treatment, which was the kind of question that was used to determine continued active status, so he said, “I can fulfill all recovery requirements.”

Gladio didn’t look satisfied with that answer.  A moment later, he said, “I’m sure you can, but how long does the pain last after we do stretches?”

“It is irrelevant,” 1987 told him.  “I ignore it.”  He’d certainly withstood worse.

“I know you do, and that’s very brave of you,” Gladio told him.  “But every body heals at a different rate, and I need to know if I started doing this therapy with you at the right time.  Does that make sense?”

1987 tried to figure out if it _did_ make sense.  He seemed to be edging around describing one of those strange, Lucian ways of thinking, where nothing was clearly defined.  1987 asked, “What are the consequences of delaying my recovery schedule?”

Gladio frowned.  “That would just mean it takes longer for you to get back on your feet.  But you mean consequences, like…?”

“How many demerits would it be?” 1987 asked.

Gladio smiled and nodded.  “Thank you for asking so directly.  There would be zero demerits and I’d thank you for being honest with me.”

1987 didn’t completely believe him, but he could only work within the parameters he’d been given, so he nodded and said, “I have had minimal lasting pain, though sometimes my shoulder hurts between treatments.”

It was nice to get a smile from Gladio for saying that when he was so unsure whether he was saying the right thing.  “I’m glad to hear that,” Gladio told him.  “Then let’s do some more.”  1987 sat on his own and did the stretches Gladio advised

“Here.  Iggy, can you get me a glass of water and a potion?”

“Well, I _can,_ ” Iggy said as he marked his place in his book and started kicking off the sheet he had over his legs.  “You would drag your own boyfriend out of bed for a glass of water?”

“I think curatives will be alright if we do this slowly enough.  When stretches feel good, it means the muscle’s healing well.  H-01987, you’re going to get a little wet.  Is that okay?”

1987 nodded.

Gladio helped him move to the chair so he wouldn’t be pouring water onto the bed, and made sure 1987 was doing all the right stretches until Iggy came back with the water and a potion.  He poured just a little bit of potion into the glass of water.

“Which stretch hurts most?” Gladio asked.  “Or, which one feels like the biggest stretch?”

“The rotation,” 1987 told him.

“Can you do that as far as feels comfortable, and hold it for a few moments?”  Gladio was swirling the water and potion together in the glass.  1987 nodded and did as he was told.

Gladio dripped just a little bit of diluted potion onto 1987’s shoulder.  It made his aching shoulder muscles warm, but not as hot as the first time 1987 had gotten a potion, when it had zipped his punishment wounds up.  He kept holding his arm at his greatest range of motion and Gladio kept dribbling tiny amounts of potion onto him until the cup was empty.  Then Gladio said, “I think that’s enough for now.  More than that, and it might mess up your body’s natural healing process.  Let’s get you dried off.”

1987 changed clothes, toweling off in the middle.  He was tucked back into bed and Noctis handed him a soft, white, cold stick wrapped in plastic, with the top open.

“Here, warmth is better for soothing new healing,” Gladio said, and pulled an object out of his bag.  It was a red, liquid-filled pouch, and he fidgeted with it until the liquid inside turned solid, then wrapped it in one of his shirts and put it on 1987’s shoulder.  It was already warm, even through the fabric.  “Now, that’s calibrated for adults, so if it starts feeling like too much, like if you start feeling nauseous or if it’s painful, just tell someone, okay?  It’s no good if it makes you heat sick.  I have something I need to check on.”  He left.

1987 was pretty sure he had meant that he was going to go yell about how much he hated Niflheim again.  He had done it in front of 1987 after he first arrived, but now he left the room to do it.

“D’you like string cheese?” Noctis asked.  “You can either bite it or pull it apart into strings.  It’s fun.”

1987 was still having a difficult time understanding “fun,” so he took a bite from the top of the “string cheese.”  He affirmed that it was good.

Even when Iggy left for a while in the evening because “I can’t listen to those chocobos anymore.  I’m sorry.  I can’t.  Charlie Chocobo has no business speaking in that octave, and I don’t think that’s even a real accent,” things stayed pretty calm.  It was a perfect night for escape.

1987 had slept a decent amount during the day.  Between physical therapy sessions, he could “nap,” but he didn’t really need as much sleep as before, so tonight he was very rested and ready to stay up late.  He was pretty sure his captors had let their guards down now that he’d slept through two nights.  He woke up earlier than Gladio, but not as early as Iggy.  If he just stayed up until all three of them were asleep, and managed to evade the fort’s guards, he could make his way north, back to Niflheim.  He’d even had his shoulder magically healed, a little, and he could take a potion with him to finish the job.

It was more difficult than he expected to stay awake until everyone was asleep.  The potion was still sitting on the nightstand, and would be easy to confiscate.

1987 looked around him to take stock of things he could use in the field.  No weapons, unfortunately, but there were two unsecured phones and Iggy’s was right on the nightstand, on top of his book.  Doubtless, it had GPS on, but once 1987 was out of the base and out of sight, he could turn that off or ditch the phone.  The map function was too valuable to leave behind.

Next, he would need warm clothing to get him through the night.  Lack of shelter and lack of water were the first things that killed you in the wild, and 1987 was very well-fed now, so he would be alright scavenging.  He wasn’t familiar with Duscae’s edible plants, but he could look them up on the phone he was stealing.  For clothing, Gladio’s jacket would do well; the fabric was thick and the dark color would help 1987 hide at night.

1987 pulled on the shoes that had been supplied for him.  He shrugged the jacket on and drank from the bottle of potion.  His shoulder felt hot, healing quickly.  It felt a little tight and tense when it was healed, but there was no pain and it supported itself.  1987 took Iggy’s phone and the water bottle next to Gladio’s bed, and went into the hallway.

There were no guards in the hall.  Clearly, the Lucians had suspected that the officers were capable of keeping 1987 contained.  He filled the water bottle in the bathroom sink and walked quietly down to the first floor.

The fort was pathetically unguarded inside, which must mean that it was guarded more heavily outside.  1987 suspected that getting outside of the walls would be the most difficult part, or possibly the only difficult part.  He didn’t know the fort’s layout, or which exit would be best to take.  He didn’t even know if there _were_ multiple exits; it might be such a small fort that only one exit was needed.

1987 found a garage.  There were six cars lined up in it, which were useless to him because he had no idea how to drive a car.  It _did_ have a side door with a small window, and 1987 was able to leave through that exit unnoticed.  That confirmed that the heaviest guard would be at the wall.

But there was a hole under the fence.

It had doubtless been made by a badger or fox, and it would be a tight fit, probably scrape him up a little even with the jacket on, but no one had bothered to fix it because no adult would be able to get through.  1987 wasn’t even close to being an adult, so he shrugged the collar of the jacket up over the top of his head and walked quickly and decisively toward the hole while he still had an opening.  After he was through, he saw a flashlight being shone on the hole, and sweeping out onto the hillside, but 1987 had just barely made it behind the nearest tree in time.  The lookouts were foolish to use flashlights; they would diminish your dark vision for everything that wasn’t illuminated.

That put 1987 out of Lucis’ sphere of influence.  It was time for him to escape.

He waited until he was completely out of sight of the base before he turned on the phone (the light was blinding, even when he figured out how to turn it all the way down, but he couldn’t let himself be tracked), found the settings, and disabled the GPS program.  He looked through the apps and didn’t find anything else that could be a GPS, which meant the phone was safe.  Then, before moving on, he checked his Maps and made sure he was oriented the right way, and carefully ensured it was closed before moving on.

The night wasn’t bad, but the jacket wasn’t as thick as 1987 had thought.  He had to find shelter, and he would need it faster than he expected.  There was a rock outcropping that suggested caves, and it was closer to the fort and more obvious than he would have liked, but it was a good bet for surviving the night.

…Or it would have been, if griffons didn’t exist, and if safe-looking outcroppings weren’t their favorite hunting grounds.

1987 was just settling between some rocks, laying down some grass he’d gathered for insulation, when the air around him roared.  For a moment, he couldn’t tell up from down, and a moment was all it took for him to get picked up in long toes thicker than his arms and get carried off.

1987 could see exactly how far he was from the ground.  He skipped over screaming and went straight to crying and panicking.  He tried to tell himself that panicking would only get him killed and he needed to be able to think logically, but that didn’t make the fear go away.  The ground was edging farther away with each flap of the griffon’s wings until it finally swooped down a long way and came up short at its cliff nest.  Air rushed around 1987 when it did that, but he wasn’t stunned like before, just afraid, and very aware of how high up he was.

1987 needed to be very good now and pretend to be dead.  It was an enormous act of willpower (it made him think of his dismal willpower scores in training and how bad it had felt to think he had no will) but he stopped crying and lay very still and acted like he had been killed or knocked out.  The griffon would either tear him up now, hopefully killing him quickly, or leave him for later.  He had to expect that he would be left to fuel later hunting.

1987 was lucky.  It was luck only, and he wouldn’t be so lucky again; the griffon left him for dead and returned to its hunt.

He had to seek a different kind of shelter now.  Hypothermia would do him no favors, but the more immediate threat was the griffon finding him.  He went the opposite way that he’d come from, the opposite way from where the griffon had returned to, and set off running and stumbling down the hill behind the cliff.  He needed distance; in a pinch, surely, his panicked, too-fast heartbeat would keep him warm.

.-._.-._.-._

Ignis was awoken in the middle of the night by an electronic alarm.  He reached for his phone, which he always placed on top of his book, but it wasn’t there.  He felt around for it before realizing the sound was only coming from across the room, and his own phone was gone.

That was when he recognized the alarm sound.

Kingsglaive Captain Drautos had explained to all four of them the GPS function of their phones.  There were two separate GPS functions, he’d said.  The first was permanent and would always be trackable by anyone with clearance.  The other was a decoy.  It could be disabled – fairly easily, even – but when it was, the phone would send a distress message to all the others, making them blare with the hell-noise Ignis was currently being subjected to.

That meant his phone was stolen – the suspect in the case was clear – and a certain escape artist was attempting not to be followed.  He was probably still in the building.  Nevertheless, Ignis sat up, pulled his glasses on, and pulled the covers back so he could stand up.

Gladio swore quietly, but fiercely.  “How’d he get out of the gate?  Noct.  Noct!”

Noctis had been starting to sit up, still looking a bit bleary-eyed, but when Gladio said Prompto was outside, he perked up immediately.  “You mean he’s gone?  Fuck, we have to go.”

They all pulled jackets and boots on over their pyjamas.  Gladio’s usual jacket was nowhere to be found, though he and Ignis both remembered that he had hung his jacket on the bed post earlier that evening.  Iggy paused before they were out the door to grab their medical kit, just in case.

They all rushed down to the garage.  Gladio collected ID cards on the way so he’d have them ready for the gate.  Noctis rang up Captain Leonis to tell him what had happened.

“Hi, Captain.  …Yeah, this is Noctis.  I’m calling because -- …Well, someone _might_ be dead in an hour or two.  That’s why I wanted you to know.  …Yeah, so long story short, Prompto escaped, but he took Iggy’s phone and we can track him through that.  We’re taking the car we came in.  …Yes, of course, sir; any developments we have time to tell you about, we will, and you’ll have a full report in the morning.  …I don’t know, sir, but if we could have a medic on standby, it would be a huge help; if he isn’t freezing to death right now, I don’t want to know what trouble he might be getting into with daemons.  …Yes sir.  Thank you, sir.  I’ll keep you posted, sir.”

Gladio and Noctis kept their phones out.  Their ID cards got them past the gate with as much speed as could be expected, and as soon as Gladio told him which way to go, Iggy fucking floored it.

He was the one who was supposed to be the light sleeper.  He was the early riser, there to ensure Prompto didn’t pull any shenanigans while they were sleeping.  And here Prompto had gone and run away.  He was sick with guilt that he knew would only ebb when they found Prompto and got him to safety.  In the meantime, he intended to drive with more haste than he had ever used in his life.

“Wait,” Noctis said when they were nearing the point where they’d leave the car.  “Wait, he’s moving.  He’s moving… Really fast?  Is there a drop ship?”

Iggy was already slowing the car when Gladio said, “There’s a griffon!  There!”

“I’m going to pluck its feathers out one by one,” Iggy murmured to himself as he slowed enough to do a three-point turn.  “That’ll fucking show it.”  He whispered every threat he could think of as he raced to follow Gladio’s and Noctis’ instructions to find its nest.

“We need to be going more right,” Noctis said as the road veered left.

“Oh, yes, let me just go offroad so we can get stuck in a pothole and waste our time worrying about that,” Ignis offered.  “Sorry.  Sorry.  You know I’m bad under stress.”

“Shut up, Noct, we can’t approach it from this side, anyway,” Gladio said.  Ignis still hadn’t actually looked at the map in days.  He could see the cliff face with a nest at the top, though.  “Look, there’s gonna be a side road in a quarter-mile, and I need you to slow down so we can take it.”

Ignis slowed when he saw the side road, and turned a bit wide so he could hold onto more of his speed.  Noctis told him when to stop and Gladio didn’t argue, and then they were all out of the car in a moment, Gladio showing Iggy where they were headed on his phone.

“He hasn’t moved in a while,” Noctis said.  “Gods, he’d better be alright.”

“He’s moving,” Gladio said.  “Look.  He’s more south.  We’re going to meet him.  Thank the Six.”

It couldn’t just be that simple, though; that was when they saw the tarantulas.

They were already running as quickly as they could, even though that meant Noctis was lagging behind.  After they saw the spider daemons, they all had weapons in their hands.  “I’ll find the boy,” Ignis said, already breathing hard from running uphill.  “I should be able to handle any tarantulas.  You two find the arachne.”  Gladio pressed a phone into his hand and he followed the direction Prompto seemed to be going in.  Finally, he saw a tuft of unruly blonde hair.

The boy was in a scuffle with a tarantula.  He was hissing at it in a strange language that Ignis couldn’t understand, and clearly losing the battle, so Ignis flipped the tarantula off the boy with his lance and then slashed at it until it was dead.

“Are you alright?” Ignis asked.  “Did it bite you?”

“It didn’t,” Prompto told him, and then burst into tears.

“Yes, yes, you did a very good job of escaping,” Ignis told him as he picked the boy up.  “You were very brave, now never do it again.  I’m just going to keep us away from these tarantulas, if you don’t mind.”

“I can talk to them,” Prompto complained.

“Clearly.  But I suspect they aren’t looking to bargain, which does make things difficult.  You’ve had rather a more exciting night than I would have liked.”  Another tarantula approached, even though he was keeping them on what he hoped was the edge of the arachne’s range.  He stabbed it and hoped the angle was wrong for Prompto to see.

“You should call me Prompto,” Prompto said through his tears.  “Because I’m useless.”

After scanning for other nearby daemons, Ignis put his lance away and hugged Prompto fiercely.  He’d been holding back all manner of angry words that he no longer had the heart to use.  “There, now.  You gave us a scare, but you’re safe, and that’s what matters.  You were doing your best by your country and that’s very honorable.  I’ll gladly call you Prompto, but only if it means you’re a brave young man who makes your own decisions.  I would never call you by it to hurt you.”

Prompto started wailing.  No wonder Gladio had had a headache; the sound seemed to burrow into your ear drums and set up shop.  Ignis continued to hold him close and rub his back, and hoped that would be enough to help until Gladio could return

Yet another tarantula was approaching them, and Iggy was debating drawing a weapon versus just kicking the thing when the daemon poofed.  Moments later, Gladio and Noctis were running down the hill toward them.  He was glad for the opportunity to hand Prompto over to someone who knew what they were doing.

“Can you drive us back, Noctis?” Iggy asked through the noise Prompto was making.  He seemed to be quieting a bit, at least.  “I feel ill.”

“The spiders didn’t get you, did they?” Noct asked.  “We have an antidote.  I think.”

Iggy shook his head.  “No, I’m just overwhelmed.  I’d like to get back as soon as possible.”  His ears were ringing and he was already exhausted from worrying so hard on the way over, not to mention navigating at ninety miles an hour after midnight.

Noctis nodded and said, “I’ll drive.”  Doubtless, he was also feeling poorly.  Fortunately, the fort wasn’t far.

Gladio climbed into the back seat with Prompto.  “Do drive carefully,” Iggy said as they all piled in.  “I don’t believe we’re using seatbelts.”

Noctis nodded and turned on the car’s high beams, pausing briefly to hand Iggy his phone to call Cor.  He turned the car and drove no faster than thirty.  He slowed down very, very gently for the turn toward the fort.  By then, Prompto was nearly asleep in Gladio’s arms.  Iggy still had all their ID cards from before, but none for the child.  Noctis was able to explain the situation while also pulling rank, and soon they were pulling into the garage.

Cor Leonis was waiting for them.  Ignis felt horrifically under-dressed.  The Marshall opened Gladio’s door for him and took the child from him, and started bouncing him gently and rubbing his back.  “Hey, kid,” he said.  “You remember me?”

Prompto nodded and sleepily told him, “Noctis said you wanted me to apologize” in heavily accented Lucian.

Cor smiled.  “Only if you want.  Did you know this is my fort?”

Prompto shook his head.

“Well, I want you to know that you’re a guest here.  As long as you stay, we won’t let anything hurt you.  No winged predators and no daemons.  Do you believe me?”

“You’ve killed so many other MT’s,” Prompto murmured.

“Adults,” Cor told him.  “Adult soldiers.  No children.  Do you believe me that this fortress is safe from intruders?”

Prompto nodded.  He could also have been falling asleep.

“Welcome to Fort Cauthess, little one,” Cor whispered, and handed him back to Gladio.

They all filed upstairs, sluggish after such a terrifying midnight interlude.  Iggy’s phone and Gladio’s jacket and water bottle were retrieved from Prompto, and they all agreed to not shower and deal with dusty sheets in the morning.  Noctis helped Prompto remove his shoes and asked if he would feel safer sleeping next to someone else.  That confirmed Iggy’s suspicion that all three of them had noticed Prompto’s mysteriously healed shoulder.

Prompto opted to sleep next to Noctis.  Cor had posted guards outside the room, so Iggy climbed into Gladio’s bed without even asking and pulled Gladio’s arm around him.  He smiled when that arm tightened, the hand flat against his belly under his pajama shirt, and he felt Gladio kiss his shoulder and then his neck.  He stroked Gladio’s foot gently with his own, and wished he was calm enough to sleep.


	7. Like An Actual Human Being

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The magic finally wears off. Iggy helps Prompto by keeping the others from bothering him while he rests.

When Prompto woke up, the first thing he noticed was that his clothes were way too tight.  He wasn’t sure he could move in them.  Were the seams splitting?  Where did he even _get_ clothes that small, much less find a way to fit them onto his body?

The second thing he noticed was that it was still night.  He looked over at where Iggy should be, and…  And he was in the wrong bed.  Hadn’t he claimed the one farthest from the door?  Or, like.  Not been fast enough to claim a better bed, because he was carsick?

Someone shifted behind him.  He heard Noctis make a small sound.  That made sense, then.  Probably, Noctis had fallen asleep holding onto him, and he hadn’t had the heart to pull away.  It happened all the time.

His memory was so fuzzy, though.  He couldn’t remember getting ready for bed, or falling asleep.  What had he even _done_ last night?

…Oh.

… _Oh._

Prompto swallowed.  Alright, that was alright, everything was okay, he just… needed to leave.  Immediately.  Before anybody woke up.

It was his own fault, really, he thought to himself as he rooted around in Iggy’s things in the dark, searching for a sewing kit.  He should’ve known better than to befriend the prince.  He should’ve known better than to actually think anything would ever be okay.  It wasn’t, and it couldn’t be, and that was his life.

He found the tiny scissors he was looking for and got to work cutting off the tiny clothes he’d gone to sleep in.  Thank the Six Iggy had a weird thing about blades and kept even his sewing scissors sharp, or Prompto might have had a lot more trouble.  He found his own clothes, the ones he’d been wearing when he turned into a child, sitting on a chair, and was relieved to see his gloves and wristbands were there, as well.  He pulled it all on, trying to stay silent, but his heartbeat was pounding in his ears and he couldn’t hear right.  Was he being loud, or was the world around him just quiet?

“Prompto?” Iggy’s voice whispered, answering that question for him.  “Why are you—you’re you.”

He froze.  Nodded.

Iggy smiled softly, looking half asleep again.  “What a blessing,” he whispered.  “I was so close to destroying those chocobo DVDs.”  He pulled Gladio’s arm tighter around himself.

Iggy stayed settled as Prompto continued readying himself to run away.  He remembered playing with the time magic cartridge, and a couple choice events, but he mostly remembered his escape attempt earlier that night, which he’d made with very little information.  He was lucky his phone could be tracked, or he would have been eaten alive by that arachne and her tarantulas, but as an adult, he wouldn’t make the same mistakes.  It was terrifying to face the night alone, knowing full well how human he was, but he had the Arsenal and he could at least lie low in a small town as a hunter if he could just get rid of his trail in the next couple hours.

Leaving his phone behind, with a last look at his former friends, Prompto took a deep breath and left the room.

The room, which had two soldiers posted at the door.

It was too late to back out.  Once he’d opened the door, he couldn’t just go back in and escape out the window.  And he couldn’t exactly say he was headed for the bathroom when he had his duffel slung over his shoulder.  But the Crownsguards seemed to half-expect him.  “Argentum, thank the Six,” one of them said, keeping his voice down.  Prompto was certain he’d never seen him before in his life.  “If you don’t mind, the Captain wanted to see you.”

Prompto did mind, but he couldn’t just _say_ that he was in the process of defecting in the middle of a month-long, high-stakes journey to connect the Crown Prince with his betrothed.  Instead, he followed the guards.

One man knocked sharply on a door in the hallway.  There was a grunt from inside, and a few moments later, Captain Leonis answered it, wearing pajamas and a robe.  He sighed, a relieved smile spreading across his face.

“Shiva’s ear lobes.  Welcome back, kid.”  His strong hand reached out to pat Prompto on the shoulder.  “Come in.”  He pulled Prompto in, so it wasn’t exactly a choice.  The door shut behind them.

“I’m so sorry, sir,” Prompto said immediately.  “You told me not to mess with the magic.  I was reckless.  I shouldn’t have acted against orders—”

“Slow down, Argentum,” Cor said.  “It’s four in the morning; there’s no reason to get so worked up at four in the morning.”

“I said such horrible things to you,” Prompto reminded him.  “Sir, I want you to know that’s not how I feel now, at all.  I have nothing but respect for you, sir.”

The Marshal sighed.  “You really don’t need to tell me, Argentum.  I know how you act around me.  Clearly, a lot’s changed since then, and I’d say all for the better.  Now put that damn bag down; nobody’s defecting tonight.”

Prompto could feel himself shaking as he set his bag down on the ground.  He was tempted to just drop it, like he just couldn’t stand to touch it, but his camera was in there.

The captain let out a long breath.  “So, they grow MT’s from people.”

This was it.  This was the part of sticking around that he _hadn’t wanted to do._   “Yes, sir.”  Never mind that he wasn’t ‘born’ like a person.  Like an actual human being.  He was some in-between _thing_ who didn’t know what he was.  The viscous, black fluid they’d tried to dose him with had made him inflamed and feverish, and his skin and eyes and blood had never turned, but even on his best days, he knew he wasn’t human.

“Citadel doesn’t know what to do with you,” Leonis told him.  “Obviously, you’re not a spy, because where would your handler be?  And no one can think of a way to get a ten-year-old to do convincing deep cover.  But they aren’t really certain what to call a Niflheimian defector who befriended the crown prince, or how to judge your allegiances.  Which is all a load of chocobo shit, because anyone who’s met you can see how loyal you are to the Crown.”

Prompto didn’t know what that meant.  Was he staying?  Was he about to be dishonorably discharged?  Maybe something worse than that, like prison time?

“Just stay calm while this gets sorted out.  Fort Cauthess can accommodate you easily enough, and Scientia already requested some time to let you rest if you managed to turn back.”

Prompto could feel his hands shaking.  He should have hidden them behind his back, but he instinctively grabbed for his wrist.  He’d kept it covered all these years, over half his life, and his childhood had just been revealed in the worst possible way.  “I don’t…  I didn’t think they’d want me to…  I mean, there’s no way they don’t think I’m a huge security risk…”

The captain shook his head.  “I talked to them plenty and they never mentioned anything like that.  They seemed a lot more set on figuring out how to help you if you turned back.  D’you need to sit down?”  He gestured to a chair.

“I should get back,” Prompto lied.  “They’ll want me to be there when they wake up, and I can answer any questions they have.”  Would he even be allowed to leave the fort?  There was no way he planned to go back to that room.  He could barely handle _thinking_ about talking to any of his friends individually; he definitely couldn’t face them together, and especially didn’t want to spend hours stewing in his own guilt while he waited for them to wake up.

“That’s a damn lie,” Captain Leonis said.  He walked up to Prompto and put a hand on his shoulder again, and tightened his grip when Prompto flinched.  “Look.  A lot happened.  Your friends are still pulling for you, so any fallout is going to come from the Citadel.  So I’m going to tell you straight: step out of line now and they’ll think it’s suspicious.  Your friends are out here on the ground with you, and they’ll forgive a lot.  The Council isn’t usually so generous.  So stay in line, file a report in the morning, and don’t fucking defect.  What, were you gonna go out and get yourself killed by daemons so you wouldn’t have to have an uncomfortable conversation with your friends?”

Prompto nodded.  Yeah, that sounded a whole lot easier.  It wasn’t just _an_ uncomfortable conversation; it was _the_ uncomfortable conversation and he’d spent over a decade running from it.  He swallowed, trying not to cry in front of his hero, but he could feel his eyes fill up.

The Immortal let go of his shoulder and sighed.  “Fuck, Argentum.  I don’t know what you’re expecting, but it’s not gonna be as bad as that.  Ah, shit.”

Prompto had started crying.  In front of Cor the Immortal.  That was it; his life was over.  Even more than when all his friends _plus Cor_ had learned that he used to be an MT.

Cor put an arm around his shoulders and guided him outside.  “Take this one down to the infirmary,” he said to one of the guards.  “Make sure he’s uninjured, and let him sleep down there.  If his friends come asking after him, tell them he needs some rest.”  He picked up Prompto’s duffel and turned to the other guard.  “You’re still on door duty.  This goes back in their bedroom as soon as people are awake in there.”  The man nodded and left.  Prompto followed the other soldier down to the infirmary.

The medic on call wasn’t happy to be woken at four in the morning, especially by someone who insisted he wasn’t injured, but couldn’t stop crying.  He checked Prompto over, including his hastily healed shoulder.  Prompto’s shoulder did hurt, still; it felt like his muscles had been pulled taut and he wasn’t looking forward to stretching them.  But they _had_ mended, technically, so he was considered uninjured and given a sedative to take so he could calm down and fall asleep.

.-._.-._.-._

Prompto woke late in the morning, if the light coming through his eyelids was any indication.  He opened his eyes slowly, his face jammed into the pillow.  He could see the blurry shapes of other beds, so he was in a hospital or something.  And he could see…  He could also see Ignis, frowning at his tablet, legs crossed like when he was arguing with someone.

Iggy’s eyes flicked up, and even though Prompto could only see him as a blurry collection of shapes, he knew Iggy was laser-focused on him.  He closed his eyes and shrugged the covers up, trying to cover his face if he could, but he knew he’d already been seen and moving his shoulder fucking hurt.

“It’s good to see you awake,” Iggy said, using the kind of gentle tone Prompto associated more with receiving an antidote or a hi-elixir than with just waking up normally.  Prompto stayed silent; people often told you a lot when you just waited for them to fill the silence.  “We were starting to worry you wouldn’t turn back,” Iggy continued.  He put a hand on Prompto’s knee through the covers.  “We’re all glad you’ve returned to us.”

“I lied to you,” Prompto pointed out.  It would be so much less painful to talk about it now than to listen to them tell him how much they missed him or how much they still wanted him, only to find out afterward that they didn’t want him along.

“You didn’t mention something painful,” Iggy said.  “It does put the person you are now into a different context, but we…  I think all three of us would have been devastated if you had defected.”  He frowned and looked away.  One of his hands gripped his knee tightly.

“Captain Leonis told you.”  His heart rate increased, his breathing quickened, his shoulders and calves tensed.  How much did the captain say?

“Your luggage was delivered to our bedroom with all of your things sans your phone,” Iggy snapped.  “It wasn’t hard to deduce.  Gladio and I have elected not to tell Noctis, by the way; just imagine how betrayed he would have felt.”  He kept his voice down, but his words felt worse than the whippings Prompto had gotten as a child.  “What were you going to do?  Were you fishing for a dishonorable discharge?  Were you planning to just go out there and _die?”_

Prompto curled up so the sheets did hide his face, and nodded.  He was right; his friends were mad at him and it would have been easier to be gone.  Just disappear in the night.  Stay away from civilization forever.  He was glad it was Ignis here because he fully expected Gladio to yell at him, just fucking roar, and he didn’t think he could handle seeing Noctis’ face if even Ignis was this mad.

“Well, then,” Ignis said.  His voice sounded clipped.  He was still mad.  “I guess I’ve failed you in just about every way possible.  I’ll let you rest.  Do go see the others; neither of them woke in the night and almost allowed you to go to your death, so they’ll be overjoyed.  Gladio does know you were going to defect, but he didn’t see you in the process of preparing to go, say hello, and just roll over and fall back asleep.”  He shifted.  It sounded like he’d stood up.  “If someone contacts you on behalf of the Council or any of the Crownsguard higher-ups, refer them to me and only me.  Prepare an incident report sometime today before one in the afternoon and I’ll look over it with you to ensure all of our stories are consistent and give the best possible image of you.  If you really do want to leave, I refuse to let it stain your reputation after everything you’ve done for this country and for Noctis.”  The sharp sound of leather shoes on floor tiles clicked away.  A door opened and shut.  Prompto wanted to just roll onto the floor and lie there until he rotted away, but he’d probably have to talk to somebody else soon.  Probably Gladio.

Nobody visited him.

He pulled himself out from under the covers, went through his escape attempt in his head, and started trying to piece together everything that had happened between opening the time magic cartridge and waking up in pajamas meant for a five-year-old.  He’d mostly stopped crying by then.  He felt bad for taking up an infirmary bed even though the room was mostly empty.  He did have an incident report to write, though, so he needed to know what had happened.  The details were so fuzzy.

Someone – Ignis, probably – had left his phone on the table next to the bed.  He grabbed it to get the time since his report had to be done by one.  It was only around ten, but he caught a glimpse of the hundred and sixty-three messages that had been entered into the four-way group chat since the last time he checked it.

No one was visiting him (because they all hated him, couldn’t handle him, were glad to have a reason to leave him alone), so he read the entire thing.

There were references to emails, so he went and read those.  Only the ones from his companions.  It started with Iggy texting the ingredients of nutrient bars and vitamin slurry because “he hasn’t been exposed to many types of foods, so we need to ensure he’s only eating things his body can handle.”  Then another email from him warning Noctis and Gladio (he wrote in the group chat that he’d copied Prompto for transparency) that H-01987 (he used his _designation,_ what the fuck) had assumed he was going to be raped when he took him aside to take out his contacts.  Prompto hadn’t even remembered that, though now that he read about it, he vaguely remembered waking up with scratchy eyes.  Then he remembered the relief of sleeping in a bed, and he wanted to thank the others for letting him sleep there, even though that made no sense.  He remembered being little and daydreaming about sleeping on wrestling mats, and his wonder and awe when the Resistance workers who took him in before he went to Lucis told him what a bed was.

No.  He didn’t remember that far.  He didn’t chase those rabbits.  He turned his attention back to the email.  It was sweet of Iggy to send, but luckily, nothing that Prompto had ever had to deal with.  Just something he’d known to worry about before he even knew what sex was.

An email from Gladio linked to a PDF about treating dislocated shoulders, and called attention to the stretches listed in it for regaining muscle flexibility and proprioception, both of which Prompto was now lacking in his shoulder due to thinking it was a great idea to just take a potion and let the muscles knit themselves back together too quickly.

Then there was one from Noctis, titled “Intel Report – Mini Prompto and MT’s.”  Prompto didn’t want to open it, but it was probably everything they knew about him, specifically, rather than about MT’s in general, and he had to know what they knew.

“Resists storage,” that was one way to put it.  Another way to put it would have been “screamed and begged, without even knowing what begging was, not to be stuffed into a person-sized closet.”  He remembered whispering his name to himself to soothe his panic attacks, and shook his head to try to rid himself of the memory.  Nothing else was unexpected, really, except that the mood of Noct’s notes was…  It was weird.  It was like he’d completely accepted that MT’s were people, even though that obviously wasn’t true.  Even Prompto didn’t consider them people; they were so brainwashed and daemonic that they couldn’t be.  (He didn’t really consider himself a person, either, sometimes, depending on how his life was going.)  One moment, he was calling the babies hatchlings, and the next, he was calling the trainers and technicians monsters for referring to those hatchlings by designations instead of names.  His note about willpower, “Like fucking dressage but with children doing military skills,” even sounded like he was… mad that someone would treat MT’s so badly?

Prompto knew that he was created for a purpose, and that that purpose was abhorrent and sickening, but he never thought for a moment that there was any injustice in treating an inhuman _thing_ like it was less than human.  It was part of why he always felt so conflicted about spending time with Noctis and his friends: someone like him just plain didn’t deserve to hang around with humans – free humans – and let everyone around him assume that he was also human and automatically deserved the same treatment as them.  So why did Noctis seem to be starting from the assumption that MT’s were born human when he’d clearly read all about egg groups?  It didn’t make any fucking sense.

He read through the group chat.  A lot of it was stuff about children: that they did enjoy watching videos over and over again, yes really Iggy, no it’s actually very important, no Iggy you can’t break those DVD’s you have no idea how screwed we’ll be without those horrible chocobo videos.  There were questions about food and how to ensure Prompto got enough fruits and veggies.  Ignis had posted contact information for two group homes that took in war refugees in case Prompto didn’t come back to himself, and helped the others put together a coherent argument (to stand up to Council scrutiny) for why Prompto being a recovered Magitek soldier didn’t impact his trustworthiness even when he was nearly alone in the field with Noctis.

He shouldn’t have been so rude to Ignis.  Iggy was just trying to help, and he was mad at himself because Prompto was an ass, and Prom was like 99% sure he owed Iggy infinite thanks for taking control of the political side of things even though Prompto had been annoying him all week.  Iggy liked to pretend his job was easy, but Prompto knew he had no free time when they were at the Citadel; all the planning and coordinating took tons of work.  Maybe Prompto could find him alone and apologize one-on-one.

He was cleared to leave, so he did.  Walking around, the blurriness gave him a headache, but Iggy had taken his contacts, so he was headed toward the right person, anyway.


	8. Not Human.  Like Me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gladio hugs Prompto even more. Prompto takes a good, long look at himself. Noctis cashes in on some of the hugs Prompto owes him.

Iggy had been talking like he was going to be working for a while.  When he set up to work, he usually did it someplace with food, so he could have an infinite supply of coffee and was less likely to miss a meal.  So the mess was the first place Prompto went.  And he did find Iggy, but he also found Gladio.

He saw Gladio spot him.  Saw the way he squeezed Iggy’s shoulders when he told him Prompto was there.  It was like when he’d left the bedroom at four in the morning: he’d been seen, so he couldn’t turn back.

The room stretched in front of him as he walked, trying to look calm, toward Iggy and Gladio.  Gladio took a moment to get out of his chair, and then he jog-walked toward Prompto and wrapped him up in his big, solid arms.  Prompto was pretty sure he could have lost all feeling in his legs and Gladio would still be supporting him.  “Good to have you back,” Gladio told him.  “Thank Shiva you’re safe.”  Prompto could hear the smile in his voice as he added, “just don’t punch me in the face this time around, alright?”

“I’m so sorry,” Prompto said.  He knew Gladio was joking, but he _had_ punched him in the face.  And then tried to jab at his pain points.

“Heyyy, hey, you’re safe now,” Gladio told him.  His voice was so gentle.  “You’re in Lucis.  You’re with us.  There’s no reason to get worked up.”

“I did, though,” Prompto pointed out.  “I did punch you.  And you were…  You did such a great job of putting up with all of it.  The kid stuff, and the MT stuff, and all of it.  Thank you.”

“It’s just how you treat a kid,” Gladio told him.  “Hell, I knew you had _some_ kind of PTSD, but I didn’t know it was that bad.  Maybe you can start telling us when something upsets you, now that we know a little more?”

“I, um.”  His voice cracked; why was he crying so much today?  “I didn’t think any of you would even want me around anymore.  It’s alright if you don’t.”

Gladio hugged him tighter.  “Y’know, you did this when you were a kid, too.  Told me to treat you like shit and started crying about it.  I’m still not having it.  Let’s go back to the room.”

“I came to apologize to Iggy,” Prompto said, his voice thick with tears.

“That’s noted, and it can wait,” Iggy said from a few feet behind them.  “Go rest.”

“We can set you up with some Charlie Chocobo,” Gladio joked quietly.  Prompto smiled a little.  “I hear they’re extremely meaningful cartoons about how people interact with each other.  Or maybe some Chocobo Roundup, which is just footage of lots and lots of chocobos.”  He finally let go of Prompto, instead putting an arm around his shoulders to guide him upstairs.

“I think I outgrew that by the time I left—”  They were still in public; how many people here knew?  Soldiers loved gossip, especially when they were at a fort and all their time was spent waiting around between missions.  “By the time I came to Lucis.”

“D’you need a shower?” Gladio asked.  “You spent all last night rolling around hillsides.  Iggy and I are already clean.”

“That sounds great,” Prompto told him.  It was an excellent excuse to not get stuck in a room with Noctis.  “I, um.  My towel’s in my bag.”  His defecting bag.  Gladio squeezed his shoulders a little tighter.  “Oh, and my.  My contacts.”  He gestured to his eyes, as if that would do anything.  “I don’t know where they are.”

“I’ll get them.  Iggy told me where the contacts are.”  They reached the bathroom and he nudged Prompto in.  “Back in a moment.”

Prompto opened the cupboard under the sink; Iggy had found saline solution and disinfectant down there, hadn’t he?  He remembered watching Iggy root around among the soaps and lye solution and empty bottles of all-purpose cleaner, and swore internally.  After that little episode, all the Chocobros would think Prompto was a child rape victim on top of literally everything else.  He could barely handle their disingenuous pity over the things that actually _had_ happened to him.  Gladio saying he already knew Prom was fucked up?  Fake.  Why didn’t he do anything, then?  Why didn’t he ever say anything?

Prompto set the contact solutions on the counter just as Gladio got back, and smiled and thanked him for getting his things.  He even acted happy to see Gladio had brought him some clothes, as if that actually mattered to him when he was certain everybody hated him.  At least Iggy had yelled at him, like he deserved.  He’d been through so many levels of background checks and hidden his past _and_ his tattoo the entire time.  Lying about your identifying marks had to be illegal, somehow, but nobody had mentioned it yet.  If Prompto died alone in a ditch somewhere, and his face was all bloated, they’d have found his tattoo and gone, “Well, I guess this isn’t Prompto.”

With the door shut, he leaned against the counter and looked at himself in the mirror.  He’d done this often after he got out of Haulhex.  He looked at his eyes, really stared at the blue of them and examined them for any hint of red, or even purple.  He’d always had hints of purple in the dark undertones of his irises, he told himself.  He told himself every time.  They had always been there, they always startled him, and his eyes simply weren’t green enough to avoid those tiny moments of panic when he thought he glimpsed a faint cast of red.

When he started obsessing too hard about whether there was red in his eyes or not, he moved on to examining his skin and hair.  Yellow fluff fell over his forehead, bright and buttery.  Colorful.  His skin was bursting with color: creamy peach, an angry pink flush, bruisey purple under his eyes.  And his freckles.  Not only were they a bright, vibrant brown; they were proof that he’d been in the sun.  That his skin responded to sun the way many humans’ skin did.  It didn’t evaporate.  It didn’t turn to smoke or ash.  It freckled, and sometimes it burned red, but more often, it freckled.  Prompto stared at his skin, taking in all his pores, reminding himself that, whatever he was, it wasn’t a daemon and it wasn’t a Magitek.  He looked away from the mirror and down at his hands.  Removed his gloves.  Blue-purple veins ran in his left wrist, and both the backs of his hands were mottled with red-purple veins.  He’d seen the skin of MT’s.  It was smooth and clear, save for the scars where daemon blood had been injected.  His own skin looked paper-thin, covered with all kinds of imperfections.  His knuckles and fingertips were tinged pink, and his freckles went all the way down his arms to the stark tan lines that showed where the tops of his gloves and wristbands hit.

There was one last thing before he showered.  He bit the cuticle of his left pinky finger until he got deep enough to make it bleed.  Bright, vital red blood came out.  He smeared it on the back of his other hand so he couldn’t doubt himself, then sucked on the wound until it stopped bleeding, examining the mark on his hand.  It was such a bright, orangey red.  The texture was so thin, he could see some of his skin through it, see the places where it ran through the little lines on his hand.  It wasn’t dark, wasn’t viscous, didn’t even have that color-drained look of the kids who were taking well to the treatments.  It was his body, and only his body, and he’d seen it with his own eyes, which were blue and not red.

He took his wristband off, washed his hands, and freshened up the solution in his contact case.  He shook the mixture a little, then pulled his contacts out and put them in.  Finally, he could see well again.  There was still an angry throbbing between his eyes, but that would go away soon.  Not for the first time, he wondered if he would have been less hopeless as an MT if he’d had eyes that worked.  Of course he was miserable at sparring and obstacle courses when his surroundings were always in soft focus.

With his contacts in and his body examined to make sure it was still human-like, Prompto got into the tub and ran himself the hottest shower he could handle.  He massaged his right shoulder once he’d acclimated to the temperature, and moaned softly as some of the tension in his hastily-healed muscles released.  At that point, he only had to wash his hair, which took seconds, but he stuck around under the hot water some more and continued rubbing his shoulder for a few minutes.

He meant to go into the room, drop his things there, and get out without waking Noctis, but when he got there, Noct was awake and looking at his phone.  When the door opened, he glanced over; when he saw it was Prompto, he sat up, shedding at least three layers of covers in the process.  “Prom!” he said, and hurried out of bed.  He took Prompto’s old clothes and showering supplies, but tossed them on Gladio’s bed and immediately hugged Prompto.  “Holy shit, Prom.  Holy shit.  I was starting to think you weren’t going to turn back.  I was so mad at myself; I’d told Gladio and Iggy it was gonna happen, but you kept staying five years old.  Holy _shit!”_   He squeezed Prompto tight.  “I missed you so much.  Did you know you had the same smile when you were little?  I swear to Leviathan.  How, um… How much do you remember?”

“Most of it,” Prompto guessed.

Noctis nodded.  “Yeah, so.  I’d look at you, watching _Chocobo Chums,_ and it was like.  Somewhere under all that brainwashing and fear is the person who’s gonna grow up to be _my best friend._   It held me together, bud.  You have the best smile.”

“Aren’t you…  Isn’t there anything you’re mad about?” Prompto asked.

“Plenty,” Noctis admitted.  Okay.  Holy shit.  Time to get yelled at by the person he cared most about in the world.  “Once Luna and I marry, the four of us should go on a special ops mission and take out some fucking Niflheim bases.  Especially fucking Haulhex.”

…Oh.  “I meant at me,” Prompto clarified.  “Aren’t you mad at me?  …For lying to you?”

Noctis shrugged.  “What, like I wouldn’t have lied if it was me?  I just felt bad ‘cause, like, the little version of you kept telling me all these things that Older You clearly didn’t want me to know about.  But you know that, since you remember it.”

“I also lied during background checks,” Prompto reminded him.  “And on my Crownsguard paperwork.  I put a bandage over my wrist so it wouldn’t look suspicious.”

Noct led him over to the bed and pulled the covers aside so they could sit down.  “Iggy’s dealing with that,” he said, like it was simple.  “Don’t worry; he’s the best.  It’ll be a side note in your file by the end of tomorrow.”

“I’m not talking about my file in the Citadel,” Prompto said, starting to shake.  “I’m talking about you and me.  I lied to you.  I could have endangered you.  Aren’t you mad?”

Noctis looked at him the way he looked at Iggy on chili night.  “Not really, but you seem to want me to be.”  He leaned against Prompto, their upper arms touching.  “I mean, we all wish you’d told us, but you’re not some kind of bad person for being scared.  I really just want to play King’s Knight with you, if you feel like it.  I just want to use your name without seeing you flinch.”

Prompto swallowed.  “What if I’m still a scared kid, sometimes?”  He was still scared of close spaces.  When he heard letters and numbers that sounded like his designation, he went tense.  Sparring would always be hard for him, no matter how many times he lost a match with no consequences.  And he still had no idea what the right amount of food was for a meal, so he copied what other people seemed to eat and hoped that was right.

Noctis slid his arm around Prompto’s shoulders, leaning farther against him so his cheek was pressed against Prompto’s shoulder.  “When we get back, I’ll connect you with my therapist.  If he doesn’t work out, we’ll find you a trauma specialist you like.  By then, you’ll be cleared with the brass, so everything you say will be covered by confidentiality.”

Right.  They still had their mission to carry out.  Noctis still had to get to Altissia to marry.  He wanted to go destroy some Niflheim bases, but more likely, he and Luna would start their life as a political power couple.  Gladio and Ignis belonged with Noct, and Prompto… would have to figure something out.

“If we do, um.”  This was the dumbest thing to bring up, but they _were_ traveling, and possibly to Niflheim, and Noctis had a new-found interest in the Niflheim resistance.  “If you ever meet Aranea Highwind, if she’s still alive, she won’t…  She’s not human.  Like me.”

Noctis perked up, supporting his own weight.  “Huh?  What do you mean?”

“She started going colorless.  Before she escaped.  She has the hair, and her skin’s… a little in between.  I mean, she’s just like me, but more visible.  She doesn’t have the eyes, though.  I know the eyes freak people out.”  The eyes Prompto had wanted to have, once.  The color he’d waited anxiously for his hair to turn, that he now dreaded seeing grow out of his own scalp someday.

“What the fuck do you mean, ‘like you’?  What do you mean, ‘not human’?”  Noctis had shifted so he was facing Prompto now, and Prom could feel himself shrink.

“Y’know…  She and I…  We both hatched.  And were injected.  And… whatever else they did to us.”  A fresh wave of guilt washed over him and he stood up, going to get his bag.  He had to zip it, and then he could go.  “I’m sorry.  I fucked up.  I fucked everything up, ever since we met.  I never should’ve let you think I was human, and then you wouldn’t have—” Prompto froze as Noctis leaned over him and all but fell onto him in a hug.

“I had to watch who I called a ‘human’ and a ‘person’ for three days straight and it’s the grossest thing I’ve ever done,” Noctis told him.  “Don’t make me keep it up.”

“You can call me whatever you want.”  Noct had called him human several times before.  Too many times for Prompto to count.  Of course he had, because Prompto had fucking _lied_ to him and let him believe he was human.

Noctis shook his head.  “I thought the adult you _knew,”_ he said.  “Fucking look at you.  You’re just like me.  Like any of us.  You’re fucking human.”

Prompto shook him off and stood up.  “You’re being an idiot,” he told his prince.  “Humans are born.  They come out of other humans alive and screaming.  They don’t… They’re not like me.”  He picked up his bag.  His eyes were overflowing.  “Thank Iggy for doing everything he can.  Tell him it isn’t his fault I’m not worth helping.  I’m not sure I was ever worth helping, and he still got me through so many layers of bureaucracy so I could spend time with you.”

Noctis stood up and hugged him from the front, and it took a pathetically gentle touch on his hand to make Prompto drop his bag.  Noct led him over to a bed – Noct’s bed – and had him lie down closer to the wall.  Prompto would have had to climb over Noctis to leave.

“If we’re going by these strict definitions, I don’t think humans have magic, either,” Noctis said.  Which was an utterly bizarre thing to say.  “I mean, I knew I was unusual my whole life.  Didn’t realize until I was, like, ten or so that Dad and I were the only ones in the world.  The only magic users are daemons and Lucis Caelum kings, so what does that make me?”

“It’s a gift granted by the Astrals,” Prompto reminded him.  “It comes to you through the Crystal.”

“And?  The Astrals made the Starscourge, too.  So fucking what if you came out of an egg?  There’s no daemon blood in you; they could never make it stick.  Prob’ly ‘cause you’ve got that million-watt smile; it was too much light.”

“That isn’t how it works,” Prompto told him.  Why was Noctis making jokes about something so desperately serious?

“Then how _does_ it work, Prompto?  Because I did some research, but I ended up with a whole bunch of no answers.”

“I have antibodies against it.”  His understanding of how that worked was pretty shaky, but he knew it was true.  “Or something.  It’s this long, slow, controlled descent into daemonhood, except they make it sound like a good thing.  Do we have to talk about that?”

“We don’t,” Noct assured him.  “Sorry.  I shouldn’t have asked; of course it’s hard to talk about.”  He paused, as if he didn’t have any idea what to say next.  Prompto was about to apologize again and leave when he said, “Iggy doesn’t help just anyone, you know.”

“Noct, I’m traveling with you; of course he’s gonna help me.”

“He’s turned Lord Amicitia down before, when he thought he was being a shithead.”  He smiled when Prompto turned his head to stare at him.  “Right to his face, too.  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Lord Amicitia, but I really have a full plate at the moment and I simply don’t have time to spare on reporting your son’s whereabouts to you.  I would offer to help you find a reputable agency to handle this sort of thing, but I know an honorable man like you would never stoop to snooping around in his son’s life, so I believe the one you’re looking for is the Kingsglaives, or else Lucian Intelligence, both of which are already at your commahnd.’  It was priceless.”

“But.”  It was too much to take in.  It was too much to process.  “I mean.  He does do whatever you tell him, though.  And he—”

“Not really.  If anything, he and Gladio are there to keep me from trusting people too much.  Which is definitely something I do.  His job is to have my best interests in mind, not just blindly do whatever I say.  And, if you hadn’t noticed, he’s really fucking good at it.  Hasn’t steered me wrong once.”

“…Except that time he let you be BFF’s with a bioengineered Magitek soldier.”

“Nah, that’s probably his best move so far.”  He felt around until he could grab Prompto’s hand.  “I’m not naïve.  If you wanted me dead, it would’ve happened by now.  Especially now that we’re on this trip.  I can think of a dozen times you could’ve just not saved me, and that would be that.  So please give me any reasonable reason I shouldn’t trust you, and I’ll listen.  But all I’m seeing is someone who’s unwaveringly loyal to me and to this country even though he was taught for almost half his life to blindly love Niflheim.” 

He was supposed to be programmable.  The words were waiting to come out of his mouth.  He could be a sleeper agent and not even know it.  But he couldn’t will himself to say it, and he hated himself for that.

“Well, I guess, when you put it that way…” he said instead.  His smile still felt pretty shaky, though.

“Good.  Then let’s play some King’s Knight.  I forgot how much single-player sucks.”


	9. How Transparent Am I?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompto dictates an incident report and launches himself into a dissociative episode. Everyone gathers to watch the Council vote.

An hour or so later, Ignis found them lying together on the bed, both their feet buried in the bunched-up covers, playing King’s Knight and taunting each other like they used to.  Prompto knew he was one suspicious question or sideways glance away from falling apart again, but this was what he’d wanted, right?  For his friends to treat him like the same person they had before.  So Iggy coming to find him and make him do something he’d promised earlier wasn’t actually the worst thing that could have happened.  Piecing together his memories of the last few days, though, was bound to fuck him up.

“Is there, like, a reading room or something we can do this in?” he asked as Iggy led him back downstairs to the work station he’d established in the mess hall.  “I mean, a lot happened.  And you’re the one who’s always mad when people have to make reports before they’ve recovered—”

They reached the bottom of the stairs and Iggy hugged him.  Wrapped his arms around Prompto’s head so he couldn’t see anything.  Warm and close.  “Shhhhhh,” he said.  “You’ll be alright.  We’ll ensure that.  Breathe with me now.  Slowly.”  He made his breathing slow and even, and Prompto tried to follow along.  He could feel his racing heartbeat in his head.

“There you go,” Iggy said when he pulled away.  “Right as rain.  Now come along.  Once you’ve done this part, you won’t need to recall it again for quite some time.”  He led the way again, and Prompto realized they’d been walking slowly before.

“This will probably go fastest if you dictate,” Iggy said as they approached the mess hall.  “I type rather quickly, and you seem to collect your thoughts best while speaking.  But I absolutely understand if you don’t want to say any of it out loud.”

“What’s it even supposed to say?”  That he’d disobeyed orders and gotten into a horrible time accident that turned him into a Magitek soldier?  That, while in that altered state, he’d yelled torture threats (were they threats?) at a highly decorated captain?  Maybe that he’d gone AWOL, putting himself and his comrades in danger, and almost got eaten by a griffon and then a tarantula?

“The truth,” Ignis said simply.  “No embellishments, but if you please, no self-deprecation, either.  As I see it, getting a little overzealous with a spanner hardly merits discharge of any kind.”

“Screwdriver,” Prompto corrected him.

“Oh, yes, my mistake.  I really shouldn’t have been so prejudiced against spanners.  Truly, it’s screwdrivers that have evil in their cold, metal hearts.  Now, this is more or less a witness statement, so just try to be sequential and put things in your own words and I’ll handle the rest of the form.”

“You’re always telling us to do our own paperwork,” Prompto reminded him.  “Always.”

“Yes, well.  I believe this battle is rather above all of your heads.  Even Noctis’.  Have you ever seen a room full of bureaucrats who are all convinced their opinion is the correct one?”

“Uh… No?”

“It makes the interviews you endured for your various security clearances look like play dates.  I want not a single apostrophe out of place on any of this.  Now, your statement, if you will?”

“Oh.  I, um.  I.  We came into Fort Cauthess on Monday evening, at twilight.  Had some dinner and showered and got settled—”

“You’re not telling a story, Prompto,” Iggy told him.  “You don’t need to set the scene so thoroughly.”

“Right.  Um.  And Captain Leonis asked me to look at a new machine we’d confiscated.  I questioned him.  I remember that.  I asked why he didn’t wait for a technician.  He said waiting for an official technician would take too long and letting me look at it wouldn’t hurt anything.  And he said he’d heard I’m pretty good with high-tech weapons.  He just told me not to mess with the magic part.  So I went and popped the chassis open – oh, should I use ‘chassis’ in this?  Is that too technical?  Call it the casing.”

“Prompto, it really doesn’t matter,” Iggy said, his fingers finally resting.  Six, Prompto hadn’t known anyone could type that fast.  “They can look it up, for all I care.  I will leave a note for you to look over, though.”

Prom nodded.  “So, I popped open the casing, and the magic cartridge was right near the outside, so I unscrewed it and pulled it out.  Most magic weapons have the same insides; you just change out the cartridge and it’s a whole new weapon.  I translated the sticker on it so Captain Leonis would know what it said.  And one of the things it said was that a level 4-4-7 technician – which is about moderate skill in machinery and ballistics, and a pretty high magic certification, since the levels only go up to nine – could reload the cartridge.  So I thought, hey, this thing is reloadable, so there must be a safe way to open it.  I… I trained a lot in Niflheimian tech, when I was a kid.  I have a feel for it.  I usually guess things like opening points correctly.”

“Let’s take a break,” Iggy said.  “That seems like a good stopping place.”

Prompto swallowed.  He was in a big mess hall, it was big enough to handle a fort full of people, so why did the air feel so close?

“I could do with some more coffee, and I think you’d appreciate some mint tea,” he continued.  “Does that sound good?”

“Yeah, great,” Prompto said.  What was Iggy even talking about?  A cup of tea wouldn’t stop the miserable feeling in his gut.  It vaguely occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten breakfast, but he was way too anxious to be hungry.

Iggy took forever getting drinks, which was his usual MO.  When he returned, he handed Prompto a cup that was actually a drinkable temperature, but still smelled and tasted strongly of mint.  His own cup looked much closer to black coffee, probably with half a sugar.

“How much coffee have you had today?” Prompto asked.  How long could Iggy keep this up?

“One and a half cups,” he said, looking at his computer screen and seemingly editing his notes.  “Don’t worry; I overdid it on caffeine a few times as a teenager and I’m very keenly aware of my limits.  How is your tea suiting you?”

“Fine.  Why?  Should it not be fine?  Did you put something in it?”  Were there things humans could taste that he couldn’t?  Was it some sort of test?

Iggy smiled like he’d made a joke.  “Not at all.  It’s perfectly safe.  It just occurred to me that I didn’t know if you particularly liked mint or not.”

“Well, it’s everywhere, and I don’t _dis_ like it,” Prom pointed out.

Iggy sighed over his coffee cup and said, “I find the real thing far outdoes the flavoring.”

“What, mint?  Or coffee?”

“Mint, certainly.  Coffee flavoring is usually actual coffee.  Mint flavor seems to be just menthol.  No depth to it.”  He smirked.  “Coffee has all kinds of depths, whether you want it to or not.  This military-grade swill has lush undertones of stale plastic, boot polish, and artificial hazelnut, but with a little extra sugar, it gets the job done.”

Prompto giggled a little, because that was what he would do, right?  He wasn’t in any kind of lighthearted mood, but if he was alright, he would have laughed at that, so he laughed.  And forced a smile.  And Iggy seemed to think he was okay again, because he asked Prompto if he was ready to continue dictating.

“Yeah, where were we?” Prom asked, keeping that smile on his face.

“You were opening the magic cartridge.”

Prom nodded like thinking about the next part didn’t make him feel sick.  “I turned into a child.  A five-year-old.  Five and a half.  I was unaware that I had ever grown up and been twenty, and I saw that the people around me were Lucian officers and thought I’d been taken as a prisoner of war.”

Iggy pressed his lips together like that was painful to hear, but he didn’t say anything, so Prompto continued.  “It was really confusing to five-year-old me: I kept giving my designation and unit number, and no one seemed to respond.  But they also didn’t seem ready to torture me.  I’d only really been prepared for those two things.  Uh.  That’s when I threw up, right?  So you guys tried to take me upstairs and get me to drink some water, but I thought it was drugged and I punched Gladio and tried to run away.”

“You thought it was drugged?” Iggy asked, his fingers still tapping at improbable speed.

“Yeah.  That first night, I was pretty convinced you were gonna either poison me or drug me.  I mean, since you were obviously not imprisoning me or sending me back to my unit.”

“Shiva.  So I guess Gladio did do a good job by eating the apples in front of you.”

“Yeah.  I didn’t like regular food at all.  It was way too much new stuff on top of everything else.”

Iggy frowned.  “I apologize; it never occurred to me that something familiar might be more comforting than something good.  I should have looked into recently confiscated rations.”

“Um.  I think you were a little busy looking into literally everything else.”

Iggy shrugged.

“Anyway, then we got ready for bed.  I was ready to cry when Noctis told me there weren’t any storage pods.  I was like, wow, even if they torture me, this part is so good.”

Ignis made a noise that sounded pretty upset.

“Hey, um.  You okay?” Prompto asked.  He probably wasn’t the one who was supposed to ask that.

“Fine,” Iggy said.  He didn’t look fine.  Or sound fine.  But Prompto knew how important it could be to just believe people.

“So, storage pods…  Then it was the thing with the contacts, right?”

“Perhaps we should skip to larger events,” Iggy suggested.  “For example, you said some very violent things to Captain Leonis.  They’ll want to know about that.”

Prompto shrugged.  “Well, he’s the Immortal,” he said.  “He throws himself into these deadly situations with MT’s and comes out alive.  When I was a kid, they taught us he was the worst enemy we’d ever face.  That he was this celebrated Lucian murderer.  He carried me back to the bedroom when I tried to escape, and when I realized who he was, I thought I’d been in more danger in those few seconds than at any other point in my life.  I was so angry at him for killing anyone who was like me.  Now that I’m older, and not so brainwashed, it’s like… He’s who I want to be.”  He started picking at his nails, and at the little bumps of scar tissue on his fingers.  “The Starscourge is evil.  If there’s a physical manifestation of evil on Eos, it’s the Starscourge.  I’ve had it in my body; it’s not like being sick.  It’s like every part of your body feels _wrong,_ like you stop being human and become something else.  But you’re still there, and you can feel it happening.”  He looked up.  “And Captain Leonis kills daemons.  Especially MT’s.  Who wouldn’t admire that?”

Iggy whispered “Prompto,” and his lips were tight, his eyes unsettled even though he continued looking at his laptop screen.  Usually, he didn’t show his emotions on his face.  Apparently, this wasn’t one of those times.

“I used to look forward to it,” Prompto whispered.  It was the wrong thing to say in a statement that would go to the Council, but he had to tell _someone._   He hadn’t told anyone in Lucis, ever.  Not even his parents.  “Losing all my color.  Getting the red eyes.  They said it would make me stronger, and I always felt so weak compared to everyone else.  It felt so wrong in my body, but I ignored that because I thought it was supposed to feel good.”  His cuticles were starting to get the little points of sharper pain that meant he was drawing blood.  “For years after I got out, I spent so much time looking in mirrors, just trying to confirm my eyes were blue and my skin and hair were colorful.  My nails were a mess in the first half of my teens because it’s really easy to bite your cuticles deep enough that they bleed.  I just needed to know that I still had thin, red blood.  I had all these nightmares that the viscous, black goo they put into me swallowed me up and turned me into something else.”

Iggy was staring at him, wide-eyed.  Prompto tried to remember the last time he’d seen Iggy looking any way other than cool and collected, or politely disapproving, and could only remember incidents from when they were teenagers. Prompto must have really upset him.  “Sorry,” he said.  Apologizing was just instinctive now, and he hadn’t meant to upset Iggy like that.  “I know you’re busy, and you’ve had a lot to deal with.  You shouldn’t have to put up with me ranting about something that happened over a decade ago.”  He forced a smile, but it was small and weak.

“No, you don’t have to—” Iggy started, and then took a deep breath and started again, with a quiet “I won’t publish that part unless you allow me to.  It was never my intention to expose anything painful.”  He breathed deeply again and let it out.  “There’s a hearing about it later this afternoon.  We should have an official decision on whether you’re allowed to stay or not by tonight.  If we have to send you back to Insomnia, we’ll ensure you have access to all the resources you need.” He swallowed audibly.  “I apologize.  Of course it was too early for you to give a statement.  We shouldn’t have had to rush it like this.  Come over here and edit this transcript and I’ll let you go up and rest or take a walk or whatever you like.”

Prompto read over his statement.  He tweaked the wording and cut out everything after the “if there’s a physical manifestation of evil” sentence.  Then Iggy asked if there was anything he wanted to include about his successful escape attempt before the report was finalized.

“No,” Prompto said.  “That’s not really…  That’s just the same as the other escape attempts, except it worked.  By then, I liked you guys enough that I basically just let you come get me when I was scared.”

“Oh, and…”  Iggy looked at him with so much fucking pity.  It was painful.  Then he blinked and looked at his computer, his face neutral again.  “Actually, never mind.  I just realized the thing I’m thinking of should have no recordings and nobody needs to know about it.  You’re good to go.  I believe Gladio is going for a run around the inside of the fence, and Noctis should still be upstairs.”

“If the hearing’s this afternoon, do I need to be there?” Prompto asked.  He was trying not to think about what a mess he’d be if he had important, influential people asking him questions about his childhood.

“Only if you want,” Iggy said.  “Your presence was requested, of course, but I was very clear that you were barely well enough to give a statement, much less testify to that pit of nagas.”

Now it was Prompto’s turn to stare.  “You can just _say_ that?”

Iggy smirked.  “Well, I kept the part about nagas to myself.  But, yes, standing up for people is one of the skills I’m proudest of and I don’t intend to stop just because a bunch of wealthy men from old noble houses throw a fit whenever anyone tells them no.  If you’d like to be in the room, of course I would let you listen in.  Noctis says I’m a force of nature when I’m defending people.”

Prompto smiled and ducked his head.  He still wasn’t sure why everyone was so convinced he was worth defending, but it was flattering, to say the least.  And kind of embarrassing.  He looked away and mumbled, “No, thanks.  I’d just get nervous.  I think I’ll go for that run now.”  He waited for Iggy to tell him he’d made the wrong decision, but instead, he just said to have a good time and turned back to his computer.

Noctis didn’t bother him when he went upstairs to change for a run.  He said hi and bye and “tell Gladio he’s a nerd for me” and not much else.

When it came down to it, though, Prompto didn’t really want to run with Gladio.  He wanted to run by himself, and also to be completely alone for as long as humanly possible.  He was pretty worried about getting the shit kicked out of him by soldiers who’d heard he used to be an MT (how many people knew?) but that still didn’t sound awkward enough to be worse than having to have another conversation that was centered around reassuring him that he wasn’t a shitty person. (Which necessarily included the idea that he was a person, which didn’t really feel true at the moment.)  He started running in what he hoped was the same direction as Gladio, judging from the direction Gladio usually ran around the training yard at the Citadel.

As it turned out, he was wrong; after a minute or two, he saw Gladio heading his way.  He knew, if he didn’t turn around to join Gladio, Gladio would turn around to join him, so he changed course and went the other way.

All Gladio said for a few minutes was, “Morning,” and Prompto responded in kind.  Gladio didn’t _look_ upset, but he could be hard to read.

“Oh, Noct said to tell you you’re a nerd,” Prompto said.  He didn’t know if silence or awkward talking was worse.

“Send that right back to him,” Gladio said, smiling.

Prompto didn’t know what to say after that.  Gladio didn’t say anything at all, but he didn’t look upset by it.  They ran several laps around the fort, until they were both pretty winded.  Gladio had asked how Prompto’s shoulder was a few times, but he didn’t ask anything more intrusive than that, and he usually checked in about hydration and recent injuries and things, so those questions didn’t feel like he was extra concerned.  As they stretched and walked off the run, he asked if Prompto had had breakfast yet.

“Please just ask whatever you want to ask,” Prompto begged quietly.

“Alright.  Is your, um…  Is your _thing_ about your shoulders related to Haulhex?”

Fuck.  Yes.  Finally, someone who just asked him normal shit.  “Yeah, sleeping pods.”  He could still remember the feel of padded metal strapping his arms down to the pod.  “You knew I had an arm thing?”

“Prompto, when in the last eight years have I _ever_ grabbed you by the arm or shoulder?”

Prompto tried to think back.  He’d been taken by the arm during that time, of course, but it was usually by an acquaintance.  Come to think of it, it was never Iggy or Gladio, and seldom Noctis.  They would touch his back or gesture from the front, pull him by the hand if they were leading him somewhere, but they didn’t do anything to his upper arms.

“How transparent am I?” Prompto whispered.  He wanted to squeeze his eyes shut and he also wanted to see Gladio’s face.

But it turned out Gladio was just his usual self, totally unchanged by just having to answer a question.  He balanced on one foot while he stretched his quads and said, “To be fair, I grew up in a pretty military-oriented household.  My dad and all his friends have seen some shit.  You learn pretty fast to be decent to people, whether they’re ready to ask you to or not.  Shit, kid, stretch your hamstrings or they’ll feel worse than that shoulder by dinner.”

Prompto leaned over and touched his toes.  He let himself feel the stretch, bending over as far as he’d go.

“D’you want to join us if we go on a campaign to wipe out all the Niflheim bases we can?” Gladio asked.  “Or would you want to stay away from them?”

“What?  Of course I’d go.”  The idea of going to any base, even for the purpose of destroying it, made his stomach turn, but no doubt Noctis would want him there.

He expected Gladio to see through him, but the Shield just nodded and stretched his hamstrings like Prompto was doing.  “Did you want to leave when you were rescued?”  He was asking all these things so casually, like they were just clarification and not Prompto’s past torn wide open.

“Yeah.  It wouldn’t have been long before I was decommissioned and deactivated.  I’m… not actually that great at being a soldier, so it was only a matter of time.”  He tried to stay calm.  He tried to just appear normal and unaffected, and do his stretches, but something about the world was going out of focus.

“You okay?”

Gladio’s voice sounded farther away than it should have, and Prompto was going dizzy.  He smiled as if it wasn’t even his body, stretched his good shoulder, and said, “Yeah, fine.”  He felt like he was watching himself from the outside.

The feeling didn’t stop, but Gladio didn’t ask him more questions.  He walked inside with Gladio, knowing he’d probably forget it all later, and said he was going to take a shower.

He had no sense of time like that, was the problem.  He wandered up to the bathroom for a shower and didn’t know if he was walking slowly or quickly.  He was pretty sure he washed his hair at least twice because he kept forgetting if he had.  It wasn’t the calm, soothing shower experience from earlier, but it seemed like a place where he was safe from questions or concerned friends.

By the time he got out, he didn’t feel like he was outside his body anymore.  He definitely didn’t feel fully present, though.  It was impossible to focus on anything.  He went to the bedroom to get some sleep pants on; he could at least take a nap like that and no one would suspect anything.

Noctis wasn’t even there, which was perfect.  Prompto got into his pajamas and fell into bed to take a nap.

.-._.-._.-._

Prompto woke feeling bleary and still tired.  He was facing the wall, so he turned over to see who was in the room.  It was only Noctis, and he was asleep, so Prompto changed back into his Crownsguard uniform and went downstairs to the mess to get some food.  He was still so anxious he didn’t feel hungry, but it had to be at least noon.  He still felt a little distant, not quite like he was outside his body anymore, but definitely unable to focus.  He wandered downstairs, trying to look like he knew where he was going and wasn’t so zoned out.  When he was little, and it happened all the time, he’d made it into a game, or something as close to a game as he could understand: keep acting in control of yourself and you won’t get beaten after training.  Even when you feel like you’re floating and you can’t make it stop, do everything you’re supposed to.

Now that he was out of Niflheim, and an adult, there would be nobody telling him what to do.  No reminders when he screwed up except confused looks and concerned questions.  So he just had to do a better job now.

He walked into the mess hall and tried to locate Iggy with his unfocused eyes.  It wasn’t like when he wasn’t wearing contacts, where his eyes wouldn’t focus; it was more like his brain wouldn’t focus.  Iggy was facing him, so he smiled and waved before going to get some food.  He didn’t remember getting a sandwich and he didn’t remember grabbing a can of soda, but he had both by the time he sat down.

Iggy said something that sounded like a greeting, so he smiled and nodded, and looked down-ish like he was really paying attention to his food.

“…toe?  Prompto.”  Iggy’s voice faded into his hearing and he tried not to jump.  He looked up, and his vision was a little clearer.

“Sorry, what?”

“I asked if you were feeling quite well.”

It took him a moment to understand what those words even meant.  Too long.  But he still smiled and looked up and said, “Yeah, I’m alright.”

“You look a bit… distant.”

It took a moment, again, to put the words together and make them make sense.  He shrugged and took another bite of his sandwich and hoped that response made sense.  Should he be more concerned?  What would concern look like?  Was he supposed to say he didn’t feel distant?  He thought he should feel more worried about how Iggy saw him, but his thoughts felt vague and unimportant.

The sound of computer keys started up again, so he’d probably passed as normal.  Even if Iggy thought he was just in a mood, like Noctis, somehow that would be better than knowing whatever dreamy thing his brain was doing.  He didn’t think the dreamy thing was supposed to happen to people, and he couldn’t make it stop.

After some period of time – long or short, he didn’t know – he heard Gladio’s voice.  But that didn’t make sense, because Gladio worked out when he was upset.  He should have been exercising again.  In any case, Prompto couldn’t make sense of the words coming out of Gladio’s mouth; they all sounded garbled.

“He’s been staring at that sandwich since he sat down,” Iggy said.  Even his voice sounded muffled.  “Hasn’t eaten a thing for several minutes.  He’s quite distracted.”  Prompto wasn’t sure who Iggy was talking about.  Definitely someone he was worrying over.

“Whaddya want me to do about it?”  Gladio seemed so much smaller than usual, somehow.  The whole world seemed to be spinning, no matter how hard Prompto focused.  “Normally I’d say, get him to a safe place and don’t let him drive, but he’s safe here.  Is he distracting you?”  Wow, anyone who distracted Iggy would be in for an earful.

He missed the next few things they said, completely failed to make out the words.  He hoped they managed to help whoever they were talking about.

Gladio surprised him when he said, “Hey, Prom, you want to come upstairs with me?”  Hadn’t he been there a long time ago?  He should have gone back to something else by now.  “Heyyy, hey, didn’t mean to make you jump.  Here, let me handle that.”  Prompto hadn’t remembered there was something in his hands, but Gladio took it from him and then helped him up with his hands on Prompto’s forearms.  Prompto wasn’t sure where Gladio was taking him, but it was Gladio, so it was fine.

He tried to walk self-assuredly, like he knew what he was doing.  Gladio kept talking about “theroom,” and Prompto knew that word had meaning, but he couldn’t remember it.  He walked up the stairs and down the hall, and stopped when Gladio grabbed his hand and led him through a door (had it been open before?  Did Prompto just miss it?  Maybe he just didn’t see it being opened?) and led him inside.

“Here, listen to this.” When did Prompto sit down?  He was so far away from the door.  A small, flat object was placed in his hand and something went into his ears.  Suddenly, there was always sound, but it was nice.

Had Gladio said anything to him?  Wait, no, Gladio wasn’t here (that felt like a flash, he didn’t even remember Gladio leaving) but the music was, and it was gentle and constant.

He didn’t know how long it was before his head started to clear.  Probably a while.  That was when he realized he’d been sitting for probably a long time, so he lay down.

He looked at his mp3 player.  As his focus came back, so did his ability to read.  He backed out of the song title and saw he was on his playlist titled “Gentle.”  He didn’t know anyone knew about that one.  That was why he didn’t generally let other people use his music devices.  None of the individual songs were anything bad, and most of his musical taste was Insomnian anyway, but he didn’t like someone else knowing he had a playlist just for calming down.  Unless that person was Noctis, of course.  Noct had his own calming playlist.

Did he need to apologize to Iggy again?  He was pretty sure he did.  He remembered Iggy saying something about him sitting there for a long time; it was probably distracting.  Iggy wasn’t supposed to have to babysit him.  (Gladio and Noct weren’t, either, so he really had to find a way to make sure no one noticed if he needed help.)

He kept the music on and walked downstairs.  The world felt a lot more solid and real than it had earlier.  This time, it was Iggy who wasn’t there.  Nobody he recognized was in the mess hall.  So he left the building to look for the training hall, since he probably owed Gladio thanks.  He wasn’t looking forward to it; thanks were even harder to give than apologies.

It took a few minutes to find the building.  Prompto had been right; Gladio was there.  But he learned that because his phone buzzed softly in his pocket and then Gladio almost rushed past him.

“Oh, hey, Prompto.  Feeling better?”

He’d wanted to be the one to start this conversation, _fuck._   “Yeah.  Thank you.  For, um…”  For what?  For coming and collecting him and getting him out of public view?  For setting him up to come out of it gently?  For getting him away from Iggy when he was so distracting?

Gladio seemed to know what he was trying to say, because he nodded and said, “Yeah, no problem.  I used to zone out, after I got my vertical scar.  It’s really disorienting.  Here, I don’t mean to rush you back to the officers’ quarters when you just came out here, but Iggy says they’re voting soon.”  He held up his phone even though the screen was off to show how he knew.  “We should probably be there.”

Prompto thought about what Gladio had said as they walked back toward where Prompto had come from.  Hadn’t Gladio gotten that scar defending Noctis from an assassination attempt?  Prompto had never had to deal with anything that dramatic.  He wasn’t ever really in danger of his life by the time the Resistance got him out.  He should stop being such a burden to his friends; they were being nice about it, but the fact was that Prompto hadn’t even been anywhere near Niflheim in almost eleven years and he had no reason to get so worked up about it.  The entire reason Gladio was with them was because Noctis had to have someone around full-time to watch out for assassins, and had needed that his whole life.  Noct wasn’t exactly a pinnacle of mental stability, but he was certainly doing better than Prompto.

A solid, steady hand pressed against his shoulder blades and his back arched a little, just for a moment, but then he relaxed and let Gladio guide him.  He hadn’t realized he’d been showing how mad he was at himself, but his eyes felt warm and swollen, so they probably looked pretty red.  He’d never been the kind of person who just let people pity him, though, so he smiled up at Gladio.  “Sorry.  I didn’t mean to get all down like that.  Oh, shit, and you meant to go alone, didn’t you?  You probably wanted a little time with Iggy.  I can go find Noct; he’ll have access to the stream, too.”

“We’ll all watch it together,” Gladio said, as if it had been planned and he was just reminding Prompto of something he’d had a hand in deciding.  “If you need a minute, though, we do have time.  They can spend forever deliberating between votes, and I think your case has… three votes?  Don’t quote me on that.”  His hand was still flat against Prompto’s back, gentle pressure.  Prompto was used to spending half the day leaning against Noctis, clapping him on the shoulder (or the ass), holding his hand to take him to a perfect selfie spot or being dragged to a good fishing hole.  He was used to spending his nights sprawled out in the tent with the other three, or at least sharing a bed with Noct.  So he couldn’t say no to a friendly touch when the closest thing he’d had all day was Iggy trying to keep him from having a panic attack and Gladio pulling him up to his room while his brain did the dreamy thing, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be with his friends when the Council decided what was going to happen to him.

.-._.-._.-._

“I think I hear them,” Noct said, and went out into the hallway.  Iggy pulled his headset cord out of his laptop and adjusted the volume.  Uncertainty swirled uncomfortably in his stomach, but he thought he’d done a good job.  He was pretty sure things were going to turn out alright.

At least 60% sure.

Fuck, those were _terrible_ odds for something so important.

Gladio and Prompto came into the room.  Iggy could really have used a hug, a kiss on the hand, _anything,_ but Gladio was distracted and didn’t spare a moment before going to pace in the back of the room.  Prompto sat by Noctis and scooted his chair closer, and they held hands.  Iggy hated the way Prompto seemed to be trying to fold himself up, make himself smaller, but at least he was reaching out for support now.

Anyway, the deliberation before the vote was just starting.

“It’s never gonna be harder than this,” Noct said quietly.  He was talking to Prompto, but the room was quiet enough for Iggy to hear.  “You’ll have to come to Council meetings with me sometimes, when we’re back in Insomnia.  You might even get a position there.  But it’s always worst when it’s about you, so it’ll always be easier than this time.”  His eyes never left the screen.

The Council argued mostly about how the existing legislation interacted with the facts.  They did it as if they weren’t completely capable of bending existing laws and creating new ones when there was a good reason, or as if Prompto had hidden his status out of malice rather than fear.  The first vote was very simple: should Prompto be permitted to stay in Prince Noctis’ entourage on his way to Altissia?

“I don’t see why they bother to deliberate,” Iggy said when he was ready to throw something at the screen.  “They’ve had days.”  His eyes flicked to Prompto.  “Either they understand you’re a trauma survivor who’s loyal to Lucis, or they don’t.  How is anybody in that room still working it out?”

“They’re all idiots,” Gladio responded, still pacing in the back of the room.  “The ones voting against him, anyway.”

Duke Aether stood and proclaimed something to be “our newest intelligence.”  That would be the report about how MT’s could be programmed.  What was happening in Lucis’ spy network, that someone had only been able to confirm it recently, and only after a couple years, and no one had explained how other technology could barely produce a robot that could walk on four legs while Niflheim was apparently also “programming” MTs’ brains?

Halfway through his sentence, Prompto started yelling at them to turn it off.  He was utterly distraught, and seemed to be yelling to mask the noise on the screen.  Noctis tried to soothe him, but his eyes never left the screen, except to flick to the door (he was always looking at doors and escape routes now, and it weighed heavily on Iggy’s heart).  He was surprised, but he seemed very deliberate about covering the sound.

“Oh, dear,” Iggy said, trying to show that it was a minor inconvenience and not the enormous revelation Prompto thought.  “Prompto, did you, um.  Did you think we didn’t know?”  That got him the silence and wide eyes he expected, so he continued: “He says ‘our newest intelligence,’ but that report is years old.  It’s only been confirmed recently, though.  They can believe whatever they like, but you have to see it would be impossible to reprogram a _brain._ ”

Prompto continued staring and it was only then that Iggy realized Prompto had never had any reason to doubt that he really could be programmed.

“Oh, Six.  Prompto, the technology simply doesn’t exist.  The closest they can do to programming a brain is to reinforce certain behaviors and thought patterns.  It isn’t like going into a computer program and changing the code.  If they could do that, I really think MT’s would be manufactured, rather than grown.”

“It’s a lie they feed the public to make them afraid of MT’s,” Noctis added.  “All our brightest minds, and all the best scientific minds that came to Lucis from Niflheim, and we can barely make a robot that can walk on four legs.”  It was the most advanced technology they’d had when the report first came out, so it was what they’d used for comparison at the time, but Iggy always found it slightly comical when someone used the same example he’d been thinking of.  “We can’t even make a prosthetic limb that uses existing nerve endings the right way.  If they could get into your head and control you, they’d have made you turn right back around the minute you left the armory.  Anyway, I know we’re all chatting, but Gladio’s dad just made the same point, so that should get shut down pretty quick.”

Prompto calmed and the rest of them took up their usual mode, when they were watching from afar and didn’t have to sit still and stay quiet, of yelling at individual Council members like it was a spectator sport.  They all quieted when the vote was called, though; that was far too important to speak through.  Noctis even tried to screencap the dissenting vote, but Iggy was damned if he was going to lose even a second of this to finding a program to copy that image into, so he slapped the prince’s hand away.

They got about three-quarters of the first vote, which lightened Iggy’s heart considerably.  Noctis was so happy, he had to stand and even jump up and down a bit.  He and Prompto hugged and celebrated together.  Even Iggy got out of his seat to sneak a kiss from Gladio.  There were still two more votes to watch, but the first two were, by far, the most important.

The next question to be voted upon was whether Prompto could stay in the Crownsguard.  There was over half an hour of deliberation, but part of it was Council members pointing out that they’d already decided Prompto was safe to have around the Prince.  Baron Coleus even pointed out that any disciplinary action, if such a thing were to be decided upon, should come from the Crownsguard, not from the Council.  Then Iggy’s uncle pointed out that the way the question had been portrayed during the hearing made it relate more to Prompto’s immigration status than his actions within the Crownsguard, and the Council’s jurisdiction certainly did include whether people were allowed into the Crownsguard due to immigration status.

They went over all the facts again, as if they hadn’t just heard them earlier: whether Prompto was aware of his status, whether he should have been, whether he should have checked his papers when he was finally able to, and whether it would have been a reasonable suspicion to think there was anything wrong with his immigration papers.  It was the nitpicking mode of legislation which Iggy had always hated.  He didn’t mind when it came to creating new laws or figuring out how overly broad legislation should be enforced, but right now, it was distracting from the central question, which was whether the Council thought that a child with an uncertain immigration status deserved to be excluded from normal Lucian life and society.  After all, by the time Prompto came to the Crownsguard, he’d lived in Insomnia for eleven years, plenty of time to become a naturalized citizen.  To cast doubt upon whether he should have gone to public school in the first place, or benefitted from any of the other Lucian and Insomnian social services that eventually made him a natural citizen, was to blame a child for the actions of his guardians.

It should have been cut and dried, but they only won by a small majority, and only after thirty-five minutes of deliberation.  Iggy stood with a short yell of excitement and triumph.  Gladio high-fived him and then squeezed him tight and whispered how proud he was.  Iggy spent half of the next deliberation period kissing his boyfriend while Noctis yelled at the screen, intentionally ignoring them. 

Things did take a turn for the worse after that.  The next vote decided that Prompto would be obligated, upon his return to Insomnia, to divulge everything he could about Niflheim’s Magitek forces, which Iggy considered a disgusting invasion of privacy.  A good portion of the Council would have been beside themselves if someone had asked _them_ to reveal anything about their childhoods, and those childhoods were spent playing on the family estate, not being forced into military training.  It was simply shameful, and they all jeered at individual Council members, except for Prompto, who probably didn’t know any of their names.

Lord Amicitia stood and read the final decisions of the Council.  Iggy couldn’t stay seated any longer; he stood and leaned over his chair, punched Gladio playfully in the arm, and yelled about his victories.  “Guess who did that!” he bragged.  “Guess who _fucking_ did that!  I did!  It was me!  I arranged the entire gods-damned thing!  I did that!”  He turned and kissed Gladio fiercely, but somehow, that wasn’t enough.  He had to crow about his own accomplishments some more.  He should go for a run or _something_ as soon as he was able; clearly, he had too much energy.  “Today is an excellent day.  There was only one loss, and it was minor compared to the victories; Prompto is here and safe and allowed to continue that way; and tonight, one of us is having certain luxurious sexual favors lavished upon him.  This is what titles are for!”

Gladio snorted.  “What, for getting your dick sucked on a military base?”

Iggy cackled.  He usually considered his words carefully, including all possible interpretations of them, but he was far too excited to do that, and Gladio had twisted his words hilariously.  “For protecting people.  It’s all well and good to go around killing monsters and things that go ‘bump’ in the night, but for helping people on a larger scale, you need a title or a law degree, or preferably, both.  The Council does well when they remember that I am, in fact, a count.”

“Prom?  Hey.  Hey, Prom.”  Gladio’s eyes flicked up, and Iggy turned to follow them.

Prompto was bent forward in his chair, doubled over, with Noctis leaning over him (the warning lights in Iggy’s head went _Bad Posture, that’s Bad Posture and he’s going to hurt himself,_ but he forced himself not to react to that) rubbing his back and frowning.  Iggy took the two steps necessary to cross the room and put a hand on Noctis’ shoulder.  “Perhaps he could use some rest.  I don’t think he’s eaten well today, and it’s probable he’s also dehydrated.”

Noctis looked like he was going to talk back, but Ignis fixed him with a Look that was fortified with the power of all the times he’d made a similar statement on Noct’s behalf, so he backed down before he’d spoken up.  He stood and took Prompto by the arms (grabbing from beneath the elbows, which was more important than ever) and guided him to the door, saying, “Hey, let’s get some food into you.  And maybe a drink or two.  Gladio, can you go down to the mess and pick something up?”

“I’ll go along,” Iggy said.  Hot, sweet drinks were good for panic attacks (especially spiked ones) and Gladio could never manage to care enough about the flavor of tea to brew a half-decent cup.  “Back in two shakes.”  He let the pair get into the hall, then squeezed around them on his way to the stairs.  He tried to give Prompto an affectionate pat on the head, which he’d always liked, but Prompto ducked his head, practically cringing, so Iggy withdrew his hand.  “Do be careful, Noctis; he’s really not himself,” Iggy added.

Noctis immediately retorted, “It’s really not the time for euphemisms; we all know he’s having a panic attack.  We’re not in the Citadel; you can say it out loud.”  He murmured something else, probably blaming himself (as if they hadn’t all failed to notice), and continued guiding Prompto down the hall.


	10. Don't Feel Like You Have to Hurry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thrilling conclusion! Will Prompto ever be okay again? (Hint: this story wasn't allowed to end until I was sure he'd be alright.)

Prompto wished he could just be forgotten by everyone.  Delete every record of himself, wipe the memories of everyone who’d ever heard of him, and begin again in the middle of nowhere.  Even his crying felt useless; he couldn’t change anything with it.  He’d still have to tell the Council everything as soon as he got back to Insomnia.  Noctis was guiding him; he didn’t pay attention to where.  He sat down on a bed (his bed, the farthest one, he recognized that much) and half-listened to Noctis talk about blood sugar or something.

Noct’s hands grabbed his face and cool thumbs rubbed over his cheekbones, helping soothe the angry heat in his eyes.  Prompto didn’t deserve it, didn’t deserve anything nice, but Noctis even pulled a blanket off the bed to wrap around his shoulders and rubbed warmth into Prompto’s back with his magic.

“Heyyy, hey,” a soft, deep voice said (Gods, all three of his friends were going to be here for this, that was the _worst)_ and a soft, palm-sized object was pushed into his hand.  “There you go.  Just try to have a little, okay?  It’s always worse when you’re hungry.”  Prompto turned his hand over and saw he was holding a rice ball.

“’m not hungry,” he said quietly.  As quietly as he could manage, with his breathing all fucked up.  He wasn’t lying; he’d felt sick all day and wasn’t sure he could keep anything down.

“Just a little,” Gladio said again, like it was a compromise.  “Just enough so you don’t feel so shitty.  I fall apart on an empty stomach, too.  C’mon, I saw you running earlier; I know you must be hungry.  A couple mouthfuls of rice shouldn’t make you sick.”  He reached up and smoothed Prompto’s hair down against the back of his head.  “We’ve got you, Prompto.  Have a rice ball or two, and drink whatever Iggy brings you, and I promise you’ll feel better soon.”

Prompto thought he might throw up without anything at all in his stomach.  He hated all the attention, and couldn’t stand how nice everyone was being when they all knew just how terrible he was.  He would’ve understood it better if Gladio had punched him in his hurt shoulder, thrown him over the fence, and left him for dead; coaxing him to have some food, like he did for Noctis when his back acted up, was way too kind when Prompto knew he deserved nothing.

Gladio was still trying, gently and intermittently, to get Prompto to eat when Iggy came into the room.  He moved quietly, closing the door softly and making almost no noise as he walked, and handed Prompto a mug for his free hand, quietly saying, “Ginger-lemon tea with liberal amounts of sugar and whiskey.  Here, I can take that while you’re drinking.”  He took the rice ball right out of Prompto’s hand and returned it to Gladio.  He put a hand on Prompto’s back (why was everyone touching him?) and ran his other hand through Gladio’s hair a few times.

They were all waiting for him to eat or drink something, and he trusted Iggy as a chef and as a medic.  He also kind of figured, if anyone thought it would be advantageous to poison or incapacitate him for a while while Noctis got the hell away, it was going to be Iggy.  He wrapped his hands around the mug even though it was burning-hot (he deserved that, deserved any amount of pain even if it was small) and sipped it slowly and carefully.  The tea was hot and spicy-citrusy and oversweet, and bitter with alcohol.  He was still crying (sobbing, loud as well as obnoxious) by the time he got halfway through it, but his hands weren’t shaking so hard.  Iggy quietly asked, “Would you like to eat something now?” and Prompto didn’t know what to say.  He didn’t feel quite as sick, but more than that, maybe if he ate something they’d all go away.  Maybe they’d be satisfied that he was alright and let him be embarrassingly miserable by himself.  So he nodded.

Iggy lifted the mug out of his hands and Gladio gave him the rice ball again.  He took a small bite and swallowed it.  It felt a little weird to eat after not having anything all day, but it tasted alright, so he had a little more.

Prompto slowly made his way through a rice ball and then the rest of the tea while the others watched over him.  Iggy’s hand never left the backs of his shoulders.  Gladio kept smoothing his hair and making sure his blanket was snug.  Noctis used his hand like a heating pad on Prompto’s back.  Everyone was being so kind to him, and he couldn’t help wondering if they’d all just decided to forget the _years of lying to them about everything he was._   He’d done everything they’d asked and they still wouldn’t leave him alone.  He sank down again to rest his head on his knees, feeling Noctis rearrange his blanket so it wouldn’t come off his shoulders.  All three of them rushed to say soothing things, but how could he be soothed when none of them had any reason not to hate him?  He didn’t know what their game was, but they were all in on it and he hated knowing his friends despised him without any evidence so he could feel justified in not trusting them.

“D’you need a nap?” Noct asked.  “When I’ve got too much going on, I always need to sleep more.  Emotions are fucking tiring.  There’s a heat-and-cold thing I can do that helps with sleep.”

“That’s not it,” Prompto grumbled.  He didn’t mean to be cagey about it, but they all already knew how they felt about him, and the least they could do was be honest.

“Perhaps something more substantial to eat?” Iggy guessed.  The whole joke was just getting cruel.

“I did this ‘stretches for relaxation’ course a couple years ago,” Gladio volunteered.  “Weirdly effective stuff.”

“Just tell me how much you hate me!” Prompto yelled.  He was sitting up, still breathing hard from crying for who-knew-how-long, and he just couldn’t keep up the pretense any longer.  He couldn’t.

Gladio and Iggy looked shocked, like they could have used some pearls to clutch; they clearly weren’t used to being called out like that.  Noctis’ hand stayed still on his shoulders.

“I know you’re all thinking about it,” Prom told them.  He couldn’t look up.  “You did your duty by me, or whatever.  I’m fine if you wanna just… happen to lose me somewhere on the road.  It’s probably better that way.”  A fresh round of tears spilled out of his eyes.  His face was already red, his eyes and throat already aching.

Noctis shifted and leaned over so his chest was flat against Prompto’s shoulder blades, his chin on Prompto’s shoulder.  “So, my therapist says this thing sometimes.  I find it’s really good for helping me get out of a spiral.  She says: there’s no way to make yourself so miserable you start feeling better.  Whatever things you’re mad at yourself for, we’re not mad at you for them, so just talk them out with us, okay?  But don’t try to make us part of your self-hate spiral.  I don’t want to, and Iggy and Gladio have put basically all their power-up points into redirecting that stuff just so they could stop me from doing it.  They have way too much practice to get pulled in when you do it.”

“You’re changing the subject,” Prompto accused.  “I’m not pulling any of you into anything!”

“Nope.  Nuh-uh. Not falling for it.”  Noctis hugged him, his arms stretching around Prompto’s torso.  He turned his head so it was his cheek resting on Prompto’s shoulder instead of his chin.  “You’re basically the best.  I’m just gonna stay over here and support the shit out of you.”

“I really think some sleep would be prudent,” Ignis said.  “Unless you’d like some more dinner, of course.  Sleep is often the best way to absorb a big event like that.”

“Gotta stretch that shoulder first, though,” Gladio cut in. “If you really want me to be awful to you, consider that to be all of it.  The worst thing I’ll ever do to you is some difficult stretches and maybe a deep-tissue massage or two if you start cramping up like _someone_ I could name.”  Gladio grinned at Noctis. 

Noct and Iggy got out of the way as Gladio stood up.  “Here,” he said.  “Just a minute or two of this, and I’ll let you lie down.  Alright?”  He ran his hand over Prompto’s hair again and gently, feather-soft, took hold of Prompto’s bad arm.

“Let’s start with the ones we did before,” he said quietly.  “You never really got to finish those.  This feel alright?”  He gently guided Prompto’s arm as far as it would go.  It hurt like hell, but Prompto tried not to let his face change.  He tried to extend his arm further, too.  Often, not stretching far enough was just a mental block, not a physical one.

Gladio frowned and pulled Prompto’s arm back a little.  “Not too far,” he said calmly.  “Nothing that hurts.”  He looked up at the others.  “Noct?  Iggy?  Could you give us a minute?”  They both left with minimal complaining.  After the door shut, Gladio leaned down and got in Prompto’s face.  “Don’t hurt yourself,” he said quietly.  It was so intense, it felt like a threat.  “Don’t you fucking dare.  I am not your shrink, and I don’t know how to be one, but I swear to all six Astrals I _will_ get you on immediate mental health leave and you’ll have to watch the wedding on the news.”  He finally backed off.  “Here.  Let me show you this next one before you do it.”

Prompto got through physical therapy.  He kept to stretches that felt comfortable because Gladio was right: he desperately wanted to go to the wedding.  Almost as desperately as he wanted them to throw him out with the trash, which, clearly, no one was going to do.

Gladio finally told him he was done and ruffled his hair again (why did that still feel so good when he was so mad at everyone?).  He left and Noctis came back.

“Hey, how are you doing panic-attack-wise?” he asked.  Did he have to be that direct?  The only thing keeping Prompto together was the way he sounded bored when he said it.  “Like you wore yourself out, or like you’re ready for sobbing: round two?”  He frowned at Prompto for a moment and Prompto was sure he was going to say something rude, but he just said, “Never mind.  I gotcha.  Here, for napping after a panic attack, you want these.”  He rooted around in his duffel and pulled out his medication bag.  “I’m only giving you half a one because you did have a drink earlier.  Knowing Iggs, that was exactly one drink…”  He mumbled to himself some more as he pulled out his pill cutter and expertly snapped a pill in half, then put the spare half back in its bottle.  He dragged himself to the bed and placed the half-pill in Prompto’s hand, said, “There, take that and you’ll fall asleep,” and leaned across Prompto so he could lie down on the wall side of the bed.  Prompto could have sworn he was already snoring when his head hit the pillow.

He didn’t like the way everyone seemed to be insisting they knew what was best for him, but he did trust Noctis, right?  Anyway, Noct had a lot more experience than him with both anxiety meds and sleep aids, so he should have good advice, right?  So Prompto took the pill.

He wasn’t sure it made him sleepy, but it did stop that uncertain feeling in his gut and ease the feeling that he was going to start crying again any second.  On the other hand, maybe it did make him sleepy because the next thing he did was roll onto his side, lay an arm over Noctis, and fall asleep, still in his clothes.

.-._.-._.-._

Noctis was Prince of Insomnia, but he was king of marathon napping.  However, he woke to find Prompto still wrapped around him.  His bottom hand was artlessly lain over Noctis’ arm, and an entire arm and leg had him wrapped in Prompto.  (Or, as he used to say when Prompto got clingy when they were kids: wrapped in best friend material.)  He was glad.  Probably, all three of them weren’t absolutely necessary when it came to helping Prompto through that attack, but they’d all tripped over themselves to help and everyone knew Noctis and sleep went together like… well… Like Noctis and Prompto, honestly: effortlessly and naturally.

More importantly: the final vote had been decided against Prompto and he’d immediately gotten a panic attack.  Noct didn’t know what it would take, but he had to ensure Prompto would get a good, long period of mental health leave once he got back, before the Council could lay a finger on him.  Noct closed his eyes and let his mind wander, which was just as good as sleep sometimes.  Except he probably did actually sleep because the next time he opened his eyes, it felt like waking up.

He turned his head to the side and Prompto’s blue eyes were staring at him.  Prom smiled at him, but he looked anything but alright.  Noct just smiled and said “hey” and turned so he could hug Prompto back.  “Feeling better?”  Noct was feeling pretty shit, actually, and he was more than ready for a hot shower and an hour or two with a heating pad, but that wasn’t something to talk to Prompto about right now.

Prom’s smile looked fake as anything when he said, “Yeah, thanks for helping me.”  As if Noctis didn’t spend his entire life looking past fake smiles.

“C’mere.”  He pulled Prompto closer to him and tucked that fluffy head against his chest.  Prompto went tense all over, like he was expecting something bad, so Noct rubbed his back, too.  “I’ve got you.  You know I understand fucking up, right?  I called my own dad by his title when I left because I was pissed he was hiding something from me.  I spent multiple chunks of my teenaged years doing everything I could to make Iggy and Gladio hate me.  So I can tell you firsthand they know what that looks like and it isn’t gonna work.  We like you too much; you’re stuck with us.”

Prompto curled up a little more against him.  Thank Shiva.  He’d spent all day distancing himself from the rest of them, and Noctis had been so worried he’d keep it up.

“I’ve got you, dude,” Noct said quietly while he rubbed Prompto’s shoulders some more.  “I’m here to stay.  You’ll just have to put up with me.”  It seemed like that was the real thing Prom was worried about.  It was definitely what Noctis worried about when he tried to push people away.

Finally, he sighed, and let go of Prom a little, and said, “Hey, I know it probably feels like lying around is all you have energy for, but all it does is keep you feeling bad.  If we go have some food and talk to people and maybe work out a little, you can start feeling like a person again.”

Prompto ignored him, instead sinking deeper into his pillow.

“I do this to _myself_ every day, Prom; I’m getting you out of bed one way or another.”  He got up and climbed over Prompto, off the bed.  Pulled the covers off most of his body and yanked them down from around his arms.  Prompto complained, but if Noctis could fight his own brain telling him that getting out of bed was useless and impossible, it would be a piece of cake to get Prompto up.  He grabbed Prom’s legs and pulled them off the bed.

Prompto retorted by squirming out of Noct’s grip and rolling to the wall side of the bed.

“Okay.  If that’s how you want to play it,” Noctis told him.  He got back in bed, pulled the covers back over them both, and kissed Prompto on his fluffy, yellow head before he lay down with an arm over his best friend.  “Let’s talk about all the things that are awesome about you.  Feel free to join in any time.”  If Prompto thought he stood a chance against Noctis when he was determined to be obnoxious, he had a big surprise coming.  “You have the dorkiest smile,” Noct began.  “It’s so honest; I love it.  At court, all the smiles are so fake and I can see right through them.  When you smile, it’s because you’re really godsdamned happy.  And I love how you always ask me to pull over when we’re on the road.  You just get so excited to be someplace new that you have to take a picture so we can all remember it.  I love looking through your pictures; I always feel like it’s good enough to just be there and see the things we see, but it means I don’t end up with anything I can show people.  I love looking back on all the stuff we’ve been through together.  You always find just the way to look at something that makes it the most beautiful.”

“Or the most dead,” Prompto mumbled.  “I use the same eyes to shoot things.”

“Yeah, and you’re a great shot.  Saved my ass plenty of times.  Even more impressive: you went through a military training course for me, just so you could take me to see Luna, even though I’m sure that whole thing was hell for you.  That’s, like, the _definition_ of loyalty.  And all those times you dragged me out to do errands and shit so I wouldn’t be lying around at home, feeling depressed?  Shit, dude, I owe you.”

“I fucking lied to you,” Prompto whined.

“About which part?”  Noct asked, because that was some bullshit.  “The part where you dragged me out to the arcade all those times so I wouldn’t shut myself inside all day?  The part where you brought me the good cough drops when I got bronchitis that one time?  Maybe that time my dad had a heart attack and you stayed up with me all night.  Oh, yeah, my mistake, that all means something completely different now that I know you were horribly abused by the Niflheim military as a kid.”

“They can program me!”  Prompto turned around.  His face was wet with tears and he was going hoarse.  “Wherever I go.  They can program my brain.  You aren’t safe.”

That was patently untrue, and Noct and Iggy had already explained why, but it was clearly something Prompto believed completely.  Time to tread carefully.  “What do they need to do, to be able to do that?  Is there a proximity thing?”

“What do you mean?”  Prompto looked confused.  “I…  I think it’s any time.  Just, whenever they want.”

“Then I think they lied to you.  Because you stood with me in a room with the King of Lucis, fresh out of heart surgery, and all you did was hold my hand.  If there’s a single strategically advantageous moment I can think of, that’s got to be it, and you didn’t hurt anyone.  To me, that doesn’t say ‘Prompto is a secret Niflheim sleeper agent.’  It says, ‘Prompto was lied to for years so he’d think Niflheim had more power over him than they do.’  That sounds like exactly the kind of thing they’d do, doesn’t it?  Like telling you you’re not a person just because you came from an egg.”

Prom flinched.  “Sorry,” Noct said hurriedly.  “Sorry.  That’s just the dumbest reason I can think of to tell someone they aren’t a person with real feelings and needs.  I’ll stop bringing it up.”

“Asshole,” Prom said, but he was finally smiling a little.

“There you go!  I just had to be a dumb enough idiot so you could start making fun of me again.”

“You’re always a dumb idiot,” Prom retorted, but then he added, “I still don’t want to get out of bed, though.”

“Too bad.”  Noctis got to his knees and started rolling Prompto off the bed.  “It’s the rules.  Royal decree.  You have to get out of bed and talk with people and do things.  You’ll never feel any better if you don’t.”

“Then why don’t you?” Prompto sniped, but Noct knew he was just calling out hypocrisy, not trying to hurt him.

“I rank too high.  No one has the guts to tell me to get my ass out of bed ‘til checkout.  All this nature and saving people helps, so you’d think there’d be more of a rush, but I can get away with practically anything.”  He got Prom near enough the edge of the bed that he was practically falling off, so Prompto sat up on his own.

“Alright, I’m up, I’m up,” Prompto protested, and then stayed sitting in the same place for a couple moments more.  “Fuck, I need to eat,” he whispered to himself.

Noct couldn’t agree more.  He led Prompto downstairs and peer-pressured him into getting pasta with plenty of meat sauce.  When they sat down, Prompto took one bite and then dumped about a hundred percent of his daily value of salt on and mixed it in, muttering about how cafeteria food never had any salt.

“So, how long d’you think we can keep the Council off your back once we get back?” Noct asked as if it was Iggy sitting across from him.  Prom wasn’t nearly as good at politics, but he’d started getting the hang of things recently, if you took the time to lead him through it.

Prompto looked up, startled, and then his eyes narrowed in suspicion.  “How do you mean?”

“Well, they’re not gonna throw a bag over your head once you’re inside the city limits and put you in a police cruiser headed for the Council chamber.  You’ll be received with me and Luna and everyone else.  I think, if we leave it up to scheduling, Iggy could keep them away from you for a week or so.  But, if we plan ahead and get you a psych eval a day or two after we get home, you can probably get a note saying they can’t bother you until talking about it won’t fuck you up, or get special dispensation to give a written report instead, or something like that.  They can say you have to bare your soul for them or whatever, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t rules to protect you.”  It was so nice watching Prompto’s face change as he realized what Noctis was saying.  His expression went from confusion to awe.  Noctis shrugged, keeping his expression flat and disinterested.  “Just my two gil.”

“You really think I could…?  That they’d let me have some time?”

“Well, not by choice,” Noctis clarified.  “But I definitely think we could _make_ them give you some time.  I can arrange it as soon as we know when we’ll be back.”

After a few moments, seemingly trying to figure out what to say, Prom just settled on, “Thank you.”  Noctis hoped he’d never have to see Prompto look that grateful again, like Noct was literally saving his life or something.

“It’s, um.”  Now it was Noct’s turn to act embarrassed.  He looked down at his pasta and fiddled with his fork.  “It isn’t selfish of me to want you at my wedding, is it?  I mean, if you want to go home, we can send you back and get you all set up and ready to go in a couple days.  I don’t mean to stop you if you want to go back.”

“I’d give anything to see it,” Prompto said quietly.  He didn’t have to elaborate; they’d been talking about it almost nonstop for weeks.  Noctis felt his shoulders relax as he realized what a relief it was that Prompto’s excitement about the wedding wasn’t just part of his “regular Insomnian” act.

“I’m really glad.”  Noct wasn’t sure he could look up.  There was some kind of happy feeling or sense of relief that had taken up residence in his chest that was almost overwhelming.  “I don’t want things to be different between us.  I don’t know what I’d do if you thought it couldn’t be the same.”  It was such a relief to just play King’s Knight earlier, like the world was starting to go back into balance.

“Thanks.”  Noct did look up; slightly inappropriate responses were the hallmark of Prompto when he felt awkward.  Sure enough, his cheeks were turning bright pink right in front of Noct’s eyes.

“Yeah, dude.  Want to play some more King’s Knight after this?  All the excitement’s got me exhausted.”

Prompto snorted.  “Yeah, because you didn’t just spend the last couple hours sleeping.”

“I’m a sickly prince from a weak bloodline,” Noct said in the most pitiful voice he could muster, and coughed weakly just for effect.

Prompto was laughing harder now, which was exactly what Noct had wanted.  “ _Anyway,_ yeah, let’s go up and play King’s Knight.  I had a lot of fun earlier.”  Noctis relaxed; maybe Prom wasn’t 100% back to himself, but he was back to doing things he liked and he didn’t have that desperate edge from earlier, like he _needed_ to feel normal or he’d explode.

.-._.-._.-._

Prompto felt like the conversation was still awkward, but he always felt like that, so he was probably wrong.  He looked up at Noctis, who was eating.  He looked relaxed.  It was probably just Prompto feeling awkward.

He followed Noct upstairs for some King’s Knight.  After their session that morning, they settled into it easily, their legs tangling loosely together through their pajama pants.  Noctis leaned over to kiss Prom on the temple, so Prompto leaned his head over to touch Noct’s shoulder more.  He was going to miss it when Noctis was married, but they’d talked and talked about how they were going to stay close even with Princess Luna in the picture.

“So, when do you think you’ll be ready to head out to Galdin Quay?” Noct asked when they were really getting into the rhythm of the game.  “Iggy set aside a week, so there’s no rush.”

Prompto thought it over.  Staying for a week would give them time to get to the quay, take the ferry, and rush Noctis into the wedding.  “I think a day or two would be fine,” he said, and as the words came out of his mouth, they felt true.  “I’ve already got my bags packed.  If I’m gonna worry about things, I can do it as well in a car as in a fort.”  And, anyway, some of his worry had eased.  If Noct and Iggy were going to use all their arcane political skills to keep him from being interrogated by the Council, somehow that convinced him better than anything else that his friends still wanted him.  And Noctis had called wanting Prompto at the wedding “selfish,” like it was something he wanted for himself.

“Don’t feel like you have to hurry,” Noct told him, and swore as they reached a really difficult section in the game.  “Shit, cover me, okay?  I think I’ve got most of this.”  They played in silence for a minute until they reached the next area.  “Anyway.  It’s no rush.  Iggy should be calmed down by tomorrow, and Gladio and I can head out any time.”

“I think I’m fine,” Prompto told him.

“That’s a very convincing lie, but I’m gonna need you to try again.”

That felt so good.  Noctis not letting him get away with his fake reassurances, just the same way he’d called him out at home.  “I think I’ll _be_ fine if you keep treating me like before.”

“Plus we’ll get you a therapist,” Noct added.  “That’ll help, too.  I’ll tell the others we’re leaving in two days.  In the meantime, is it time for bed, or is that just me?”

Prompto laughed and shoved him a little, and Noctis was laughing, too, and maybe it really would be alright.


End file.
